Hyacinth Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I don't want to douse myself with Deep Woods OFF spray every day, but I'm getting desperate. Can anyone suggest a tried-and-true but natural(ish) repellent? Surely there is some kind of miracle essential oil for this? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I am a mosquito magnet. The only thing I have had any success with is Burt's Bees Insect Repellent. I have to douse myself with the stuff, but it works better than anything else I have tried. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan in TN Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Try repellant made with 20% picaridin. We find it very effective against chiggers, ticks, and mosquitos, even camping out in the woods for a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKim Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Mosquitos love my mom too. She swears by the stinky garlic supplements. She takes them every summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerileanne99 Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Do you by chance have type O blood? I recently read an article that came through my science daily feed where they actually did twin studies to look at the effects of blood type and other more topical factors. Apparently, type O is very attractive to those pesky female Mosquitos! We recently found a mosquito repellent bracelet for my dd that seems to work for her at the grocery store of all places:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBM Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Get one of these outfits. :D http://www.wisementrading.com/insectprotection/bug_out.htm I wonder if they make them in pink? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plansrme Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 One of my kids is a mosquito magnet as well, and she has huge, scarring reactions to bites. They swell, they last for weeks, the scars are visible for months. Lovely! We keep Off everywhere and just douse her clothes in it, not her skin (maybe a spritz on her lower legs), and that usually seems to do the trick. When she does get bites, she puts Benadryl cream on them immediately. That stops the reaction in its tracks, but it has to be done nearly immediately. We have Benadryl cream everywhere. But what has really made the biggest difference is having a colony of bats move into the ventilation louvers under the top floor of our house. Long-term, if you can persuade some bats to move in, you won't be sorry. Our bats leave during the winter and come back early spring. They drop guano down the side of our house, and we can hear them squeak and shuffle around, but other than the guano on our white house, they're excellent house guests. Our yard has gone from being nearly unusable in the summer to downright pleasant. We have many fewer mosquitos than even our next-door neighbors. I will take the bats over mosquitos any day. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatieJ Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 DH is a mosquito magnet as well. He just told me about a top rated bug repellant in consumers report. I ordered some off amazon. We'll see. Repel lemon eucalyptus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I'm a mosquito magnet, but not this year. I tried this recipe I saw on Pinterest for "natural" baby lotion. It didn't come out anything like baby lotion, it came out like body butter, but it works AMAZING as a bug repellant. This was the recipe: 1 part natural oil (I filled a 1/2 cup measuring cup with 1/3 shea butter, 1/3 cocoa butter, and 1/3 extra virgin coconut oil because I had them on hand, I'm sure just coconut oil would work fine). 1 part 100% aloe vera gel (I used a half cup of the clear kind from the sunscreen section, not directly from a plant - I read somewhere the drugstore kind has been heated and is less likely to mold). Lemongrass and Lavender essential oils. I get the cheap food-grade NOW brand, lately Amazon is the cheapest place I've found it, but beware, sometimes they say an essential oil is a hazardous material and refuse to ship it prime, other times it's mysteriously not hazardous and does come in two days. I just heated the oils in 30 second increments in a glass bowl in the microwave until they were completely melted, stirring each time. When it was done I used probably 10 drops of lemongrass oil and 10 drops of lavender until it smelled strong but not overwhelming to me. I used the immersion blender and whipped the mixture together, then put it in the fridge for about 10 minutes at a time before I'd take it out and whip it with the immersion blender again. I think it took about half an hour in the fridge before it was a body butter consistency. I put it in a pretty glass jar with a lid that used to hold a candle. If it gets over about 75 degrees I keep it in the fridge so it won't melt, but otherwise it sits on an end table in the family room. If I'm going to be out around dusk or going to the state park or somewhere bugs are bad I put it all over my exposed skin. The bugs don't bother me any more, and for the first time DH got bitten and I didn't. Lemongrass oil repels some bugs, Lavender repels others. You can also add other oils- peppermint, etc. Just be careful to not add a citrus oil because they'll make your skin more sensitive to the sun. I will say that after a couple of days DH came home and hugged me and demanded to know where the cookies were. I guess the combo of oils plus lemongrass smelled like lemon cookies to him. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I once read that we all are equally attractive to mosquitos, but some of us react more. I hate lavender because of my extensive use of it as a mildly ineffective mosquito repellant. I much prefer a mosquito net. Mainly I just suffer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Dh has had really good luck with lemongrass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MercyA Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Bite Blocker lotion seems to work fairly well for us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kewb Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I know there is no science to back it up but taking B1 consistently throughout the summer makes me less of a magnet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acorn Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 If I'm regularly using antihistamines, the bites are only itchy for a day or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merry gardens Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Last summer, I started showering with a soap I'd found at a garden supply center that has a citrus-y smell designed to repel bugs. http://www.sallyeander.com/shop/no-bite-me-soap It seems to help, as I don't have to remember to apply bug repellent. They also sell a cream with the same scent. There's more than one kind of bug repellant soap, so you might need to try several before finding one that you like. Here's another that's made and sold by homeschoolers http://www.goatmilkstuff.com/Goat-Milk-Soap-Bug-Out.html Besides doing things with scents to repel mosquitoes, make sure you aren't doing things that attract them. Bugs like floral scents, but apparently they don't like citrus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawthorne44 Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Yeah, they love me too. I remember one time at my Grandparents cabin where the family wanted to sit on the dock to talk. I wanted to stay inside. They insisted that there weren't any mosquitoes. In Minnesota. yeah right. I dressed in long socks, pants, long sleeved shirt AND a raincoat. I kept my hands in the coat pocket. I got 7 bites, everyone else got zero. I'm with you on wanting to not use spray every day. They are bad fliers, so if daughter really really wants me to go outside I take a fan on a low extension cord and point it at me. Otherwise my plan is to stay inside, which also works to avoid sunscreen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cinder Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 Do you by chance have type O blood? I recently read an article that came through my science daily feed where they actually did twin studies to look at the effects of blood type and other more topical factors. Apparently, type O is very attractive to those pesky female Mosquitos! Well that blood type thing doesn't work for me. I'm A+ and mosquitoes loooooove me. Love! Dh is also A+ but I've only known him to get maybe a handful of mosquito bites in the 30 years I've known him. We're trying a new-to-us repellant this year: Coleman SkinSmart. I've actually not tried it out yet, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 About the blood type thing... All of my kids have the exact same blood type. Yes, all 6 of them. Some of them are mosquito magnets; some aren't. They are all A+ kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandragood1 Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 I had fewer bug bites when I was eating grain free. I have heard others also comment that they had fewer noted while following a Paleo type diet. If you are really miserable and nothing is working well diet modification could be worth a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa in Australia Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 eat lots of vegemite :coolgleamA: I think it is the vitamin B that does it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In The Great White North Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 I've also heard that eating lots of garlic (raw, as in hummus and tzadziki, or by the clove) repels ticks, so maybe it helps with mosquitos too. We have bats, so it hasn't really been tested here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 Try repellant made with 20% picaridin. We find it very effective against chiggers, ticks, and mosquitos, even camping out in the woods for a week. This is what I use when I'm mowing or doing outside work on our property. It seems to do it with the local insects. I was moving our steep slope last weekend (a two-hour job), and forgot. And I have welts from a hungry mosquito or two. Sigh. However, on fishing trips, I have to use DEET against the sand flies. Nothing else works, but thankfully that's just a few times a year. I don't like using DEET on an ongoing basis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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