Natural mosquito relief

Mosquitoes LOVE me!  Actually, all bugs seem to: mosquitoes, gnats, if it's biting, it's biting me.
Case in point, this past weekend, I ended up with MASSIVE red welts on my legs, my arms, my sides even directly on my spine and the all *itch* like crazy!

Even the After Bite that I've known and loved for years isn't cutting the itch. But I have a new secret weapon.

Plantain.

Not the kind of plantain that looks like an overgrown banana, but this stuff:

It's also known as Plantago Major, Snakeweed, Che Qian Zi or White Man's Foot and although many people see it as a noxious weed, it really helps to take the sting and itch out of bug bites!  It's also great for other skin irritations.  You can use the plant leaves by picking some and either chewing them a little or tearing them and applying them directly to the bite (I don't recommend this if you don't know for sure that pesticides and fertilizers haven't been used on it) or you can do what I do & buy it at a co-op:

  

This is an extract, similar to the vanilla extract we all grew up knowing about, so yes, I could eat it, but it doesn't really have much taste.  I prefer to put it on my skin.  For bug bites I bought a little roller bottle and just glide some directly on the bite.  For other skin irritations (like the evil rashes I get around my eyes when I get what I think is a demodex outbreak), I mix the extract with jojoba oil.  Jojoba isn't really and oil, it's actually a liquid wax, but it's a nice thing to use because it closely mimics skin's own oils and it doesn't go rancid like some other oils do.

I have *super* sensitive skin (allergic to aloe sensitive) and I'm in ♥ with plantain.

I've heard that lemon balm soap is a very good bug repellent that smells nice to us and works pretty well. I'm going to have to try it out sometime soon, but I'll start small in case I'm allergic!