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A small part of me dreads summer<\/a> in the city. Showing some skin comes with a price: Sunscreen layered with what I like to call my favorite warm-weather \u201cfragrance:\u201d Bug spray with DEET.<\/p>\n To say that mosquitoes love me is an understatement. Childhood visits to the Philippines required hotel reservations rather than staying with family because I would get eaten alive. A two-week trip to Thailand with a then-boyfriend resulted in one hospital visit and a week\u2019s long supply of antibiotics, all because of 37 mosquito bites. I\u2019ve even woken up to three bites on my face in the dead of winter. If those pesky little blood suckers are in my vicinity, I will be bitten.<\/p>\n Recently, an old study<\/a> linking alcohol consumption and mosquito attraction is making its rounds on social media again. Does this mean it\u2019s time to rethink ros\u00e9 season, too?<\/p>\n Floyd Shockley, PhD., FRES, entomology collections manager at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History<\/a>, says the answer to that question is nuanced (and not just about alcohol, actually). \u201cIt\u2019s not really the alcohol that mosquitoes are attracted to,\u201d Dr. Shockley tells Vogue<\/em>. \u201cBut because of the ways they locate and identify potential blood hosts, which all change in response to ingestion of alcohol, resulting in increased attraction.\u201d<\/p>\n Female mosquitoes (they are the ones doing the biting, not males, because they need it as fuel for reproduction) bite in order to mature their eggs, Shockley says. Who they pick to feast on depends on a few things. While studies show that certain blood types<\/a>, diet<\/a>, and fragrances and lotions make you more attractive to insects, he says those actually play a very small role in why you get bitten. So, what is literal mosquito bait? Increased body heat, carbon dioxide output, and skin odor are the three main factors that actually make someone attractive to mosquitoes.<\/p>\n When one drinks, they are likely to experience one\u2014if not all\u2014of those changes in the body. And if you’re someone mosquitoes already love to bite before a cocktail or two, you\u2019re certainly even more attractive with the physiological changes that come with it. \u201cAn already tasty meal will become even more irresistible,\u201d Shockley says.<\/p>\n The study also shows that drinking beer has the highest degree<\/a> of attraction with mosquitoes compared to other types of alcohol. But even if beer is your drink of choice, you shouldn\u2019t be too hung up on that detail. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the alcohol, though,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about the carbonation and the fermentation, which are different between beer and other forms of alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n Shockley has some other tips to avoid being bitten: Of course, the best form of prevention is reducing skin exposure during periods of the day when mosquitoes are most active, like at dusk or at dawn<\/a>. You might also want to consider wearing light colored clothing\u2014apparently, mosquitoes find a darker fashion palette more appealing. Carrying around a portable fan can also be helpful, he says, as air movement removes CO2<\/sub> and sweat while also reducing your body temperature (\u201cMosquitoes are [also] not great flyers and struggle to land when there is a lot of wind,\u201d he adds).<\/p>\n And yes, there are essential oils,<\/a> such as lavender<\/a> and lemon eucalyptus oil<\/a>, that have shown to be somewhat effective in warding off mosquitoes. But the gold standard, he says, will always be DEET. So I, along with everyone else, can still enjoy those outdoor summer happy hours with a glass of ros\u00e9 in hand. I\u2019ll just be sure to have my trusty DEET in the other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n