Last Friday in Are You a Mosquito Favorite? we explored what makes certain individuals especially attractive to mosquitoes. Today, as promised, we're going to look into ways to keeping mosquitoes away and preventing bites – without chemicals.

Below are some natural mosquito deterrents, courtesy of WebMD:

• Soybean oil-based repellants protect from mosquitoes for about one and a half hours.


• Other oils, including citronella, cedar, peppermint, lemongrass, and geranium provide only minimal protection that's quite short-lived.


• Oil of lemon eucalyptus repellants are available under the brand name Repel, and are endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control. Safe for children over age 3, lemon eucalyptus oil provides the same protection as low concentrations of DEET.


• Thiamin (vitamin B1) is also used as a mosquito repellant, and can be worn as a skin patch or taken internally. The science to back this up dates back to a study done in the 1960s, which demonstrated that thiamin produces a skin odor that female mosquitoes don't like.


• Mosquito traps eliminate the need to spray or stick anything on your body at all. Traps emit something that mosquitoes find attractive, such as heat or carbon dioxide, and then kill or trap them. These traps are particularly useful near mosquito breeding grounds, where they are effective at driving mosquito populations down.


• Insect repellant clothing is infused with the chemical insecticide permethrin. Used by military personnel for years, the clothing is now being promoted as a must for people who spend a lot of time outdoors. (We wonder about the effects of this in terms of being absorbed into your skin, however, and may not categorize this method as "natural.")


• Eliminate mosquito breeding grounds near your home. These essentially means addressing any areas that accumulate standing water, including clogged gutters, the crevices of plastic toys, rain barrels without screen covers, and bird baths, to name a few.