Tecnu Bites and Stings Medicated Itch and Pain Relief Wipes, 20 Count

Last night I had two bug bites bugging the heck out of me, itching, burning... well that's living in New Orleans. Five minutes outside and something has bit or stung one of us.I was scratching away then I remembered I had got these Tecnu wipes to test. Since we are heading for Florida I had tossed them in the Florida survival bag and planned on testing them there. No matter how much off I use, and I call OFF my "Florida perfume," I still get bitten or stung. But I do here too, so I dug the box out and got a wipe out.There are two sides, one is rough, like an emery board or loofah, the other side is smooth. The smooth side is for stinger types, bees etc. The rough side is for other bites. I image you don't want to rub a stinger in, but with the other bites you want to get a little deeper with the medication so it can penetrate all around.The Tecnu has a slight medicinal smell, nothing horrible. I rubbed the bite on my hand first, it was the worst, burning and itching like crazy. I had already scratched it open. Within seconds of wiping it with the towelette it stopped. While impressed I was curious to how long it would last. I did my leg next and again, almost immediate relief.I don't know how long it lasted, but I rubbed at 8, no more itching until bed time. I woke up around 3 for a minute and still no itching.I like the convenience of not having to take bottles or lotions when we hike or are at the beach or the bay. These would also be great to keep in the car, or as the product page suggests-backpack, or purse.

Bug bites are abounding around my home this year! The lovely weather is drawing us outside, and conditions have been right for plenty of biting insects. As a result, my daughters have been plagued with mosquito, fire ant, and spider bites in the last few weeks, so we have had plenty of opportunity to try out these wipes.The odor is what I would consider medium strength as far as medicated topical products. It is not unpleasant, but it is certainly obvious.The wipe application is cool and soothing. For the mosquito bites and fire ant bites all of us have experienced in the last couple of weeks, the effects are moderate and last for a while. My 16yr old had two spider bites on her foot that swelled to over an inch wide and were driving her crazy; this product had little effect on the bites despite the fact that she sat rubbing a wipe on the bites for about 10 minutes. She was begging for another option as soon as the wipe dried up because the wipe had not eliminated the itch for good.Another issue here came when I ended up with one mosquito bite on my leg, I just couldn't bring myself to open up and use an entire wipe on that one bite. It just seemed like a waste, since the wipes are more the size of a facial wipe. I might as well just use a dot of Benadryl anti-itch cream, which I realize is not homeopathic but it certainly works and is not wasteful.We took a few of these camping last weekend, and I certainly appreciated the ease of packing a few wipes that I could pass out as needed instead of passing around a tube of cream. However, the trash generated by using the wipes is another strike against them for me, because the tube of cream goes back in my bag without generating more camping garbage to dispose of and send to the landfill.If this company decided to produce a cream, gel, or liquid comprised of the same ingredients in these wipes, instead applied straight from a tube/bottle to the bites, I think it would be a better solution to the itchy bite problem. I would still use such a product for its effectiveness on the mosquito and ant bites, even though it didn't do much for the spider bites, because I appreciate the homeopathic approach.

These almost get 5 stars and maybe after I use a few more of them I will bump the star level up to 5. I used a wipe this morning on some mosquito bites that I got while watering the garden, and on a few other non-sourced itchies. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast they knocked the itch out. I had a bite on my forehead and several on my ankles. The towelette type cloth wipe is smooth on one side and rough on the other. The rough side felt-so-good being rubbed on the bites themselves - sort of a substitute way to scratch the itch without using dirty fingernails or overdoing it.I used one wipe on all the bites and noticed that a slightly sticky film was left on my skin but it was not unpleasant. The scent is kind of medicated smelling but not bad, and the ingredients list seems to be completely natural. The active ingredients are Grindella robusta, Plantago major and Candula officinalis. It says, "homeopathic" on the box.These individually packaged anti-itch wipes would be great to put in a backpack, purse, car or whatever. I normally use Calamine lotion when I get itches but toting a bottle of Calamine lotion in a backpack while hiking or camping isn't exactly space or weight saving. These are perfect for that. Overall - I like these a lot, they seem to work and though I can still feel the itches a teeny tiny bit, I 'm not digging into my skin like I usually do when I get mosquito bites. These wipes are meant for minor itches only and probably would not be good to use on poison ivy/oak or other serious intense itching.