Managing Mosquitos & Bites

Gone backpacking this past weekend our camping place on the river heralded mosquito grounds. I was not up for the bites, and was not prepared with spray or citronella incense. My campmates decided to take the blows and the next day were covered in bites. I have a few of them myself.

Personally, I don't mind the itching. But I never want to be in this situation again. So now I'm checking out online what people have to say about healing bites and avoiding them in the first place. The easiest and most common sense thing to do is to clean up (not that easy when you're backpacking). Plunging into the cold mountain river was helpful. For my buddies who couldn't stop itching, I suggested aloe vera gel or a bath of chamomile flowers. But there's a bunch of other ideas worth trying too (if you have this many, you might as well experiment): baths of apple cider vinegar or epsom salts; pastes of baking soda, toothpaste, or salt; the direct application of onion, lemon, honey, garlic, or essential oils tea tree, rosemary, neem, lavender, witch hazel and cedar. How funny we could have appeared licking our wounds by the river.

So for avoiding this in the first place? Don't attract them if you can help it. (Don't camp by water!!) Get dry after the exercise, don't eat too much high salt/potassium foods, don't wear a bunch of scented outdoor products, wear protective clothing (I'm pretty sure they avoided my raincoat) and arm yourself with essential oils. This website suggests: castor, cedar, celery extract, clove, citronella, geranium, lemon eucalyptus, fennel, lavender, lemon grass, peppermint, rosemary, and tea tree oil. And cites a study from University of Guelph showing citronella candles reduce mosquito bites by 42% and citronella incense by 24%. Next trip I'm preparing my own spray based on the idea of rubbing alcohol, witch hazel, olive oil and essential oils.

Insect First Aid

It's not the height of insect season yet but I might as well start preparing. Previously I have relied on the powers of mind to not be bugged by bugs. But since I recently posted a link to "Creating Your Own Herbal First Aid Kit" on facebook, I was introduced to the idea of "natural insect repellant". I am now very curious about homemade insect repellants I can make now for this summer. Here are at least three resources:

How to repel mosquitos - the best thing about this article is that it recommends growing herbs: rosemary, marigolds, citronella, Horse Mint, basil, lemongrass, catnip, garlic, tansies, and Mosquito Plant (mmm garlic)

Methods for in home and on body - the general recommendation here is to keep clean and grow herbs! It also recommends steeping mint, rosemary, or basil for a spray

The Ecologist published an article on this topic! - this article is more concerned with preventing pests in the garden but anyway, echoes the idea of growing herbs: sage, peppermint, tansy, catnip and pennyroyal

The obvious next step for me will be to make a spray, relying on essential oils. There are some recipes posted here: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/natural-insect-repellents-460608#fbIndex1 I do wonder how fresh the herb or spray needs to be? Or I can make soap, with herbs like lemon balm (citronella), pennyroyal, lavender, and rose geranium. In addition I should do my best to remember to consume apple cider vinegar, garlic, and Vitamin B1.