Warnings label expert off bug spray12/24/2023 ![]() Picaridin is another effective DEET alternative and is popular because it's lighter and barely smells, he said. "Any place on your body that's exposed is fair game," he said. The "gold standard," he said is DEET, which should be applied directly to the skin, while keeping it away from eyes, ears and mouth. He also said to wear long sleeves and pants if you're in an a particularly mosquito-infested place.įinally, he said that people should defend using a known mosquito repellent. "Mosquitoes can and will bite through tight-fitting clothing," he said, so loose-fitting clothing of a light color is preferable. He also said it's important to dress properly. It takes mosquitoes from five to 14 days to grow from egg to adult, so he suggested draining every five days. Mosquitoes will breed in whatever is accessible to them, so he said to empty flower pots and air conditioner unit drain pans and even make sure water isn't trapped in the folds of tarps covering woodpiles or backyard equipment. If you really want to protect yourself from mosquito bites, Conlon suggested following the three "D's": Drain, dress properly and defend.įirst off, he said, "Drain any standing water around the house." "There's possibly something different about the way they smell to a mosquito" or a change in temperature, she said.Ĭonlon said alcohol could play a role because people who sweat a lot tend to attract mosquitoes and drinking could make someone flush and their skin become a little warmer. Paskewitz said a couple of studies have shown that drinking beer could make a person more attractive to mosquitoes. The idea, Conlon said, is that a few drops in a bowl of water will attract the bugs to lay eggs in the water and then kill them off.īut he said that, as with the other household products, no scientific proof supports this claim.Īlcohol: Believe it or not, there might actually be some truth to the claim that alcohol affects your attractiveness to bugs. Lemon Joy: Some think Lemon Joy, the dishwashing detergent, is another mosquito murderer in disguise. "If it worked, I would be completely amazed," she said. She said some might think that the strong-smelling compounds might make the person more or less attractive to mosquitoes, but she said she didn't think anyone had ever done a scientific study to examine a connection. But Paskewitz said that though some of the product's ingredients have been shown to be repellent, Listerine itself has yet to prove its power to science.Ĭonlon also said that the claim that the mouthwash fights mosquitoes has "no basis in fact."ĭryer Sheets: Some think this household product also moonlights in pest control, but Paskewitz said its properties have yet to be tested in the lab. Listerine: If the Internet is to be believed, this antiseptic mouthwash doubles as an effective bug repellent. Can Some Household Products Double as Mosquito Killers? "Some subsets of people show dramatic variability," she said, adding that whether people ate bananas or not, they might attract several mosquitoes at one time, and fewer mosquitoes hours later. However, she said a study in her lab didn't prove a link between bananas and mosquito attraction. Susan Paskewitz, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that some people think the fruit attracts mosquitoes, others think it repels them.īut "the predominant thinking is that bananas do make you more attractive," she said. When researchers at the University of Wisconsin asked volunteers to take placebos or capsules with vitamin B, they did not find any evidence that the substance could help reduce mosquito attraction.īananas: This one goes both ways.
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