Prevent Sweet Itch — With Plant Oils
How Renoura works on a different level than the creams and sprays everyone else is using — by stopping the midge bite that triggers sweet itch, instead of chasing the itch after it's already started.
By Wendy Holloway · Updated May 2026
If your horse rubs his mane and tail raw every summer no matter what you put on him, it isn't because you haven't tried hard enough. It's because almost everything on the shelf is aimed at the wrong part of the problem. Here's how Renoura is different.
01
Sweet itch isn't a skin condition. It's a reaction to a bite — so every cream is treating the wrong thing.
Soothing gels, anti-itch shampoos, and medicated ointments all work on the itch and the sores after they appear.
But those are the last domino, not the first.
Sweet itch starts when a midge bites.
Renoura works at the front of the chain — on the bite itself — instead of chasing the damage after it's done.
02
The midge finds your horse by scent — and that's exactly what the oils disrupt.
A biting midge doesn't find your horse by chance.
He gives off a scent plume — carbon dioxide, lactic acid, other compounds — that drifts on the wind, and she tracks it straight to him through the receptors on her antennae.
The plant oils scramble that signal so she can't read it.
And a midge that can't find your horse can't land on him, and can't bite him.
03
By the time the midge lands, it's already too late.
The trigger for sweet itch isn't the itch — it's the proteins in the midge's saliva, injected the instant she bites.
So anything built to kill or repel her after she's landed misses the only moment that matters.
The saliva is already in.
The reaction has already started.
The only way to stop sweet itch is to stop her from landing in the first place — which is exactly what scent-disruption does.
04
Renoura doesn't soothe the itch, and it doesn't kill the midge. It just makes your horse the one she can't find.
That's the whole difference.
You can't soothe your way out of an allergy that gets re-triggered every single day all summer — you're always one step behind it.
Stop the bites, and the reaction has nothing to start it.
Renoura isn't fighting the symptom or the insect.
It's removing your horse from the equation entirely.
05
The oils aren't random — they're some of the most established botanical insect deterrents there are.
Citronella has been relied on as a plant-based repellent for over a century.
Litsea cubeba and clove are rich in citral and eugenol — two compounds research repeatedly links to insect-deterrent activity.
Thyme's thymol, plus lavender, peppermint, and tea tree, are all long documented for deterring biting insects.
This isn't a novelty blend.
It's the plant world's proven bug-deterrents, aimed at the one bug behind sweet itch.
The bottom line: every cream in the tack room is built to chase the itch after it starts.
Renoura is built to prevent the midge bite that causes it — so the reaction never gets going in the first place.
→ See how it works
