Last August, I discussed what chemicals Mosquitoes smell when they are tracking people down.
A new study from John Carlson at Yale found mosquites sense primarily
indole. Indole is a decomposition product of the amino acid triptophan, and may be the result of skin bacteria degrading the skin. Other chemicals detected 2,3 butanedione and 1-octen-3-ol, may similarly be bacteral degradation products.
There is an exception 2-ethyl phenol -- that is from urine.
If there were a way to keeps skin bacteria from living on your skin, one might avoid mosquito bites, but I don't think that is easy to do.
If urine you smell like urine, you have bigger problems than mosquitos.
We like bacteria living on our skin. They are our commensals. We evolved with them. If you wipe out the good bacteria on your skin, that leaves the way paved for baddies to come in and make everything worse for you.
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