Better understanding the ingredients in personal care products that ward off the insects may lead to more effective mosquito repellents
By Soumya Sagar
10 May 2023
Mosquitoes may pick up on the fragrances in body washes
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The body wash you use in the shower may react with your natural odour to make you more attractive to mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes use various methods to find a target for their next blood meal, such as detecting an animal’s body heat, odour and the carbon dioxide they emit.
To learn if the body wash we use may have an effect, Clément Vinauger at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and his colleagues selected varieties from the brands Dial, Dove, Native and Simple Truth.
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First, they placed two strips of nylon on one of the forearms of four volunteers and wrapped that area in foil, to collect the participants’ natural odour.
Next, the researchers washed part of each participants’ other forearm with about 1 gram of one of the body washes for 10 seconds, before rinsing it with water for a further 10 seconds. They then similarly applied two strips of nylon and foil to these forearms, to collect the wash’s scent. The researchers repeated this with the three other body washes.
One hour after each sample was taken, they took two strips – one from each of the body wash-exposed areas and one from the body wash-free areas – for chemical analysis while the other body wash-free and body wash-exposed strips were put in separate cups.