Planning a camping trip soon? There is no more need to pack a mosquito repellent, if you have a Victoria's Secret perfume in your back pocket.
Researchers at New Mexico State University recently compared the effectiveness of eight commercially available repellents, two perfumes, and a vitamin B patch in shooing mosquitoes away, and were surprised by their findings.
The study, published in the Journal of Insect Science, found out that Victoria's Secret Bombshell perfume worked fairly well in repelling mosquitoes, and even worked for longer hours compared to regular mosquito repellents.
Another lifestyle product, the Avon Skin So Soft Bath Oil, was also found to be effective against mosquitoes, repelling these insects that carry deadly diseases like dengue fever and malaria, for at least two hours.
In general, the researchers concluded that products that contained the tried-and-true ingredient diethyltoluamide (DEET) were most effective in warding off the mosquitoes.
To test the efficacy of each of the products, the scientists conducted an experiment, where they placed a mosquito at the long end of a Y-shaped plastic tube.
One of the researchers, who was found to be particularly attractive to mosquitoes, then placed her two hands at the ends of both forked tubes. One of the hands had the products that were being tested, while the other did not have them.
A product was deemed to be effective in repelling mosquitoes if the insect tended to move toward the untreated hand, or stayed still.
The same experiment also debunked further assumptions that fruity and floral scents were attractive to mosquitoes.
"There was some previous literature that said fruity, floral scents attracted mosquitoes, and to not wear those. It was interesting to see that the mosquitoes weren't actually attracted to the person that was wearing the Victoria's Secret perfume – they were repelled by it," said Stacy Rodriguez, a research assistant involved in the study, was quoted by Popular Science as saying.
