I was researching how to treat insect bites recently, and all the related material I stumbled upon online always started with simply washing the area with soap and water. That sounded like the classic “oh, you have [x], take an aspirin” cliché to me. As in, sure it’ll help, but that helps anything, really.
Well, turns out that if you methodically do wash the affected area upon noticing the bite, and before scratching it (even after), it makes a huge difference in both the propagation, and the itchiness.
I’ve so far “tested” it with both many mosquito bites, as well as with one deer fly bite, in the last 2 weeks, and I’ve since let myself run out of post-bite cream, something I didn’t think I ever would.
I wish I didn’t wait until I was 40 to find that out!
tekArtist 
Here’s another: clean the bite with white vinegar.
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I read that too, indeed. I’d rather smell like soap though! ;)
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The smell fades pretty quickly as the vinegar dries. It does work. :)
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I only had red wine vinegar on hand. I’ll definitely try with white.
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For the record, when I was in a jam, and until now, my go-to move was whatever hard liquor there was on hand, which works too. But, not quite as well as soap & water, and white vinegar.
It does have the advantage to give one an excuse to pour a small shot of [insert preferred fine alcohol here] to dip a Q-Tip in though. :D
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