Question:
Personally, I don't recall ever having been bitten. However, when going to a
risk area, I make sure that nothing I use, including soap, contains any form
of perfume. Perfumes seem to attract mosquitoes.
I seem to attract mosquitos disproportionately and I react very
violently to their bites. I have often asked local people if
they know what attracts mosquitos, midges and the like. I have never
found one yet who knows why one person gets bitten and another not.
I suspect it has more to do with the "smell" of the person's blood,
and presumably ease of extraction, than any personal deodorant they
may be wearing. I have to use unfragranced grooming products so I
know it is not the perfume that attracts them.
Answer:
I usually don't wear perfumes, but on a hot day, I may splash a little
lavender water or something of the sort on my skin. Even this doesn't
attract mosquitoes. The only place I ever found mosquitoes biting me was
on a coastal island off the coast of Virginia. There were so many
mosquitoes there that they settled in the eyebrows and inside the ears
and other places that had been imperfectly covered with DEET. However,
even though I got a few bites on that occasion, the bites didn't itch
and didn't raise welts.
When I bought my house in New Jersey, it was infested with fleas. When
my kids had a few obvious insect bites, I thought it was mosquitoes.
However, I got suspicious when I got a welt. I had never had such an
itchy bite before in my life and immediately suspected that something
other than mosquitoes must be responsible.
