You may be attracting mosquitoes with your soap as well as your sweet-tasting blood.
New research reveals that mosquitoes feast on your limbs due to heavily fragranced body wash.
Some body wash scents attract mosquitoes, while others repel them.
In the 2023 iScience study, individuals' natural body odor and the soaps' fragrance/chemical makeup affected bugs' attraction.
Participants were given odor samples before and after using different soap brands. Native, Simple Truth, Dove, and Dial were tried.
Dove, Dial, and Simple Truth users attracted the critters more than Native users (interestingly, this brand promises to use less aroma and more natural components).
What was surprising in our results was the importance of the interaction between the specific soap chemicals
The body odor of each specific individual in determining whether a person would become more or less attractive to mosquitoes after applying soap to their skin.
In other words, some soaps increased the attractiveness of some people but not others.