The Tamesis
A small part of me fears summer in the city. Showing some skin comes at a price: sunscreen topped with my favorite warm-weather “perfume”: bug spray containing DEET.
To say mosquitoes love me is an understatement. Childhood trips to the Philippines required booking a hotel instead of staying with family because I would be eaten alive. A two-week trip to Thailand with my then-boyfriend resulted in a trip to the hospital and a week of antibiotics, all because of 37 mosquito bites. I even woke up in the middle of winter to find three bites on my face. If those nasty little bloodsuckers were anywhere near me, I would get bitten.
Recently, an old study linking alcohol consumption to mosquito attraction has been circulating on social media again. Does this mean it’s time to rethink rosé wine season?
The answer to that question is nuanced (and it’s actually not just about alcohol), says Floyd Shockley, Ph.D., FRES, manager of entomology collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “It’s not alcohol that attracts mosquitoes,” Dr. Shockley told us Fashion. “But because of the way they locate and identify potential blood hosts, these changes with alcohol intake, resulting in increased attraction.”
Female mosquitoes (which are the biting mosquitoes, as opposed to male mosquitoes because they need female mosquitoes for fuel to reproduce) bite in order to mature their eggs, Shockley said. Whose food they choose to eat depends on several things. While research suggests that certain blood types, diets, perfumes and lotions can make you more attractive to insects, he says these actually play a small role in why you get bitten. So, what exactly is mosquito bait? Increased body temperature, carbon dioxide emissions and skin odor are the three main factors that make people attractive to mosquitoes.
When a person drinks alcohol, they may experience one, if not all, of the changes in their body. If you’re someone who enjoys getting bitten by mosquitoes before you’ve had a cocktail or two, the ensuing physiological changes are sure to make you more attractive. “An already delicious meal will become even more irresistible,” Shockley said.
Research also shows that drinking beer is most attractive to mosquitoes compared to other types of alcohol. But even if beer is your drink of choice, you shouldn’t get too hung up on this detail. “This has nothing to do with alcohol, though,” he said. “It’s about carbonation and fermentation, which is different from beer and other forms of alcohol.”
Shockley has some other tips for avoiding bites: Of course, the best prevention is to reduce skin exposure during times of day when mosquitoes are most active, such as dusk or dawn. You may also want to consider wearing light-colored clothing – apparently mosquitoes find dark fashion color palettes more attractive. It’s also helpful to have a portable fan with you because the air movement removes carbon dioxide, he said2 Sweating, while lowering body temperature (“Mosquitoes are [also] It doesn’t fly well and it’s difficult to land when the wind is strong,” he added).
Yes, some essential oils, such as lavender and lemon eucalyptus, have been shown to be effective in repelling mosquitoes. But he said the gold standard will always be DEET. So I, like everyone else, can still enjoy those outdoor summer fun times with a glass of rosé in hand. I’ll make sure I have my trusty DEET in another bottle.
