By: Blonde Two
From time to time we Blondes are sent free outdoor products to field test and promote. We’ll always be honest about our findings and only review products in which we think you might be interested. We are waiting for actual insect bites to properly test the bite away device but in the meantime we thought you might be interested to find out more before the little blighters (biters) appear.
Insect bites and travel
Those of you who love travelling to warmer climes will understand how irritating it can be to arrive at the perfect wild location only to be greeted by a hoard of hungry, blood-seeking insects. Please allow me to assure you at this point, you won’t be missing out on red lumps and nighttime scratching if you choose this year to stick to local or UK holidays. Below are just a few examples of the places I have experienced the misery of insect bits.
- Scotland (the dreaded midge)
- New Zealand (ankle biting sandflies)
- Exmoor (horseflies)
- My Dad’s garden in Cornwall (massive mosquitos)
- My bottom
That insect bite itch
Whatever the location or nasty biting creature, you can be sure that once that red lump appears, you’re in for a couple of fidgety days. I’m not a massive fan of creams for insect bites especially when my skin is already smothered in insect repellent. I have been known however to hold a hot cup of tea to my bites. I have no idea why heat gives relief but it does. Indeed, if you catch the bite quickly enough, a hot cuppa applied for as long as you can bear can sometimes avoid the itching altogether. It could of course be suggested that drinking the cup of tea might also take your mind off your insect bite. There are a however a few drawbacks to this method of bite relief.
- You might not like hot drinks
- Making a cup of tea isn’t always convenient
- Spilling your tea is always upsetting
- Holding a mug to your bottom is a tad embarrassing
Something new to try
The above cuppa drawbacks are the reason I was so keen to try out bite away. This pen-sized device delivers, via a precise ceramic pad, the right amount of heat to take away that itch. It offers two options, a three-second heat zap (for the sensitive souls among us) and a five-second blast (for the thrill seekers). Short of sticking my hand into an ants’ nest or indeed trying to have a wild wee in Scotland (tricky from Devon) I can’t magic up an insect bite but I have tried both settings on my arm and they are no more or less bearable than a hot cup of tea.
If you prefer a chemical-free approach bite away might be a useful addition to your outdoor toolkit. It’s easy to use, doesn’t have a use by date and is small enough to fit into most first aid kits. If I was going on holiday anytime soon, I would be taking it with me. In the meantime, I am off across the Tamar Bridge to sit around in Dad’s garden until the mosquitos come out to play.
I wonder if this works, like the hot tea, with the same principle as a hot poultice drawing out the poison and therefore stopping it infecting the skin and causing the itch?
I did look into the science but it was mixed and a bit convoluted. I decided to go down the ‘if it works, it works’ route. Recent experiments on my son (he’s thirty) demonstrated 12-hours of itch relief with the itch only restarting when he absentmindedly scratched the mosquito bite again.
According to Google : That dreaded itching is actually caused by a protein that prevents clotting, thus allowing skeeters to, well, suck your blood. The application of heat will kill this protein;
New to me!
I think histamines play a part too…