Researchers at Virginia Tech have discovered that certain fragranced soaps are more susceptible to attracting mosquitoes.
In Florida, there are 80 different species of mosquitoes, and a quarter of those are considered a public health threat because they may carry diseases.
As the rainy season in South Florida brings in more mosquitoes, you may want to swap out your scented soap.
“Female mosquitos, they look for us because they need our blood to produce eggs, but they also look for flowers to get the sugars from the nectar of those plants so basically when you're putting those chemicals, you're basically blurring the lines and mosquitos are affected by that,” said Clément Vinauger, an assistant professor of biochemistry at Virginia Tech.
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“We wash ourselves with soaps and we like those soaps to be scented with flowers or fruit smells because we find that very pleasant but the problem is that mosquitoes like that too.”
Researchers like Vinauger set out to answer the question: could our scents attract or repel mosquitoes?
The researchers tested volunteers with nylon sleeves and four popular soaps: Dial, Dove, Simple Truth, and Native.
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“What we found was that three out of four soaps that we tested actually increased how attractive to mosquitoes, and only one of them had the opposite effect, to make you less attractive to mosquitoes,” Vinauger explained.
The soap that repelled mosquitoes was coconut scented Native.
“The soaps, from your body, but also from all these sources that you mentioned, maybe your laundry detergent is scented with something, maybe you're drinking a beer and that attracts more mosquitoes as well, so all these interactions result in explaining what mosquitos like or not, so it’s a very complex system,” said Vinauger.
Researchers say this is a step in the right direction to understand how mosquitoes think and operate, but more work needs to be done.
Here’s one thing that we know for sure: standing water is a magnet. Drain your garbage cans, gutters, buckets, flowerpots, and outside toys in order to avoid mosquitoes.
And don’t forget the bug spray!
