Short answer: put something cold on it first, then 1% hydrocortisone cream. That combination handles the great majority of ordinary wasp stings. Almost everything else you’ll read about — vinegar, baking soda, toothpaste, meat tenderizer, a crushed aspirin paste — is either harmless-but-unproven or actively a bad idea.
For non-aggressive wasps I've had great luck spraying nests with this Spectracide wasp remover in the evening. For a nest up high in an eave, soffit, or tree, this Gotcha pole adapter clamps onto the can so you can spray from the end of an extension pole and treat the nest from 10+ feet away instead of standing right under it. And for anything aggressive I wear this ridiculous-looking upper torso beekeeping suit and keep my distance. It seems silly, but trust me, I learned the hard way.
The reason this question generates so much conflicting advice is that most of the popular remedies are built on a chemistry story that doesn’t hold up. Once you understand why, sorting good advice from folklore gets easy.
This guide ranks what to put on a wasp sting by how well it actually works, explains what to avoid and why, and covers the situations where a topical treatment isn’t the right answer at all.
Two steps come before whatever you apply, and skipping them causes more problems than choosing the “wrong” cream ever will.
Move away from where you were stung. Wasps defend their nests in groups, and a disturbed colony will keep sending them. Treating a sting while standing next to the nest is how one sting becomes six. Get inside or well clear of the area first.
Wash the site with soap and water. This is the step people skip in favor of running straight for a remedy, and it’s the one that matters most for preventing the complication you’re actually likely to get: a skin infection. Wasp stings puncture the skin barrier, and the site will be scratched over the coming days.
One more thing worth doing immediately if the sting is on a hand, finger, wrist, or foot: take off rings, watches, and tight footwear now. Swelling builds over the next 24 to 48 hours, and a ring that fits comfortably today can become genuinely difficult to remove tomorrow.
Unlike honey bees, wasps don’t leave a stinger behind — their stinger is smooth and withdraws cleanly. If you’re hunting for something to pull out, you’re almost certainly looking at the puncture mark itself. Our guide on whether wasps leave a stinger in your skin covers this in detail, but the practical upshot is: don’t dig at the site.
A cold compress is the most useful thing you can put on a wasp sting, and it beats every cream in the first few hours. Cold constricts local blood vessels, which slows the spread of venom through the tissue, and it directly dulls the nerve signaling that produces both pain and itch.
How to use it: wrap ice or a gel pack in a thin towel — never apply ice directly to skin — and hold it on for 10 to 20 minutes, then take it off for a similar interval. Repeat through the first several hours. A bag of frozen vegetables works fine.
Elevating the affected limb above heart level alongside the cold helps limit swelling, particularly for stings on hands, arms, and feet.
This is the best thing to put on a wasp sting once the initial pain settles into itching and inflammation, usually within the first day. Hydrocortisone is a mild topical steroid available over the counter, and it reduces the local inflammatory response that drives redness, swelling, and itch.
How to use it: apply a thin layer to the sting site two to three times a day. Use it on intact skin only — not on a site that’s been scratched open. Don’t continue past about a week without checking with a doctor, and be more cautious on the face, where prolonged topical steroid use can thin the skin.
If pain or itch is the dominant complaint, an over-the-counter topical anesthetic numbs the area directly. Pramoxine 1% (found in several anti-itch lotions) is a good choice — it’s effective for itch and rarely causes the skin sensitization that some other anesthetics do. Lidocaine 4% creams work for short-term pain relief.
Use these on a discrete sting site rather than slathering them over a broad area, and follow the package directions on frequency.
Not something you put on a sting, but worth knowing: an over-the-counter pain reliever like ibuprofen or acetaminophen handles sting pain well, and an oral antihistamine helps with itch and hives. Our guide to antihistamines for wasp stings compares the options and explains when one is actually warranted.
These carry essentially no risk on intact skin. None of them has strong evidence behind it, and where they help, the benefit is most likely simple cooling and moisture rather than any specific chemistry. If one of them is what you have in the cupboard at 9pm, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to reach for.
This is the more useful half of the list, because several widely circulated remedies can make a sting worse.
Topical diphenhydramine (Benadryl cream, gel, or spray). Skip this one specifically. Topical antihistamines are a well-recognized cause of allergic contact dermatitis — meaning they can produce exactly the itchy, inflamed rash you were trying to treat. The risk is worse if you’re also taking diphenhydramine by mouth, since absorption through irritated skin adds to the oral dose. Hydrocortisone is the better topical in every respect.
Benzocaine. A common ingredient in sting-relief products, but a frequent cause of skin sensitization. It also shouldn’t be used on young children. Pramoxine or lidocaine are better anesthetic choices.
Triple antibiotic ointment, routinely. Neomycin, a component of most triple-antibiotic ointments, is one of the more common contact allergens in over-the-counter products. An uninfected sting doesn’t need topical antibiotics, and applying them preventively mostly adds allergy risk. Save them for a site that’s genuinely broken open, and consider a plain petrolatum ointment or bacitracin-only product instead.
Undiluted essential oils — tea tree, lavender, peppermint, clove. These are common causes of contact dermatitis when applied neat to irritated skin. If you use them at all, they need heavy dilution in a carrier oil, and there’s no evidence they outperform a cold compress.
Meat tenderizer or papaya-based papain paste. The theory is that papain enzymes break down venom proteins. Studies looking at enzyme-based treatments for stings haven’t supported it, and the practical problem is unchanged either way: the venom is already beneath your skin, where a paste applied on top cannot reach it. Papain can also irritate skin and cause allergic reactions.
Crushed aspirin paste. Sometimes recommended for insect stings, but research on insect bites has found it no better than ice and possibly associated with a longer duration of redness. Topical salicylate is an irritant on broken skin.
Toothpaste. Any relief here is the menthol producing a cooling sensation. Toothpaste also contains detergents and abrasives that irritate broken skin. Use an actual cold compress.
Repeated rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. Fine for a single initial clean if you have nothing else, but repeated application damages healing tissue and delays recovery. Soap and water is better.
Bleach, gasoline, kerosene, nail polish remover, or any solvent. These cause chemical burns on top of a sting. There is no version of this that helps.
Urine, tobacco, spit, or mud. All introduce bacteria into an open puncture wound. Sting infections are the most common real complication of a wasp sting, and these are a direct route to one.
Heat, in the first day. A warm compress increases local blood flow and swelling. Cold first; heat is only sometimes useful much later in healing.
Cutting, squeezing, or trying to suck out the venom. Wasp venom is injected and disperses into tissue within seconds. None of this removes it, and all of it damages the site and invites infection. Tourniquets are likewise unhelpful and potentially dangerous.
The most persistent piece of wasp sting folklore goes like this: bee venom is acidic so treat it with baking soda, wasp venom is alkaline so treat it with vinegar. You’ll find it repeated everywhere, and it’s the reason people go looking for apple cider vinegar instead of an ice pack.
There are two problems with it.
First, the chemistry is off. Honey bee venom is genuinely acidic, around pH 5. But wasp venom sits close to neutral — roughly pH 7 — not the strongly alkaline substance the remedy implies. There’s very little acidity there to counteract.
Second, and more decisive: the venom isn’t on your skin. A wasp injects venom into the tissue beneath the skin barrier, and it disperses within seconds. A liquid dabbed on the surface doesn’t reach it. Even if the pH story were right, the treatment couldn’t act on its target.
And the pain and swelling aren’t an acid burn in the first place. Wasp venom contains peptides and enzymes that trigger your immune system to release histamine and other inflammatory mediators. That’s an immune response, not a chemistry problem, which is precisely why the treatments that do work — cold, steroids, antihistamines — all act on inflammation rather than on the venom.
Vinegar and baking soda aren’t dangerous on intact skin, and if dabbing something on the site makes you feel better, no harm done. Just don’t reach for them ahead of an ice pack, and don’t put vinegar on a site you’ve scratched open.
Face and eyelids. Facial swelling from a sting looks alarming and is often more dramatic than the same sting elsewhere, simply because the tissue is loose. Cold compresses are safe. Be sparing with hydrocortisone here. A sting on or very near the eye should be evaluated by a doctor rather than treated at home.
Inside the mouth or throat. This is an emergency regardless of allergy status, because swelling in the airway can obstruct breathing. Seek immediate medical care — don’t treat this one at home.
Hands and fingers. Remove rings immediately, elevate the hand, and expect more swelling than you’d get elsewhere. Swelling that crosses a joint and limits movement is worth having looked at.
Children. The topical options above are broadly fine for children, but check age guidance on the label, avoid benzocaine products entirely, and keep the site covered with a bandage — kids scratch, and scratching is what turns a sting into an infection. Trim fingernails if there’s a sting they can reach.
Pets. Don’t apply human creams to a dog or cat without veterinary guidance; they lick treated areas and can ingest them. Facial or mouth swelling in a pet warrants a call to the vet because of airway risk. See our guide on what to do when a dog is stung by a wasp.
No topical treatment addresses these situations. Recognizing them matters more than any remedy on this page.
Call 911 immediately for signs of anaphylaxis, which usually begin within minutes to an hour:
Use a prescribed epinephrine auto-injector right away if one is available. Our guide to allergic reactions to wasp stings covers this in depth.
See a doctor for signs of infection, which develop later — typically 48 hours or more after the sting:
Our wasp sting infection guide explains how to tell infection apart from ordinary healing inflammation.
Also seek care for: a large local reaction with swelling spreading well beyond the sting site, many stings in one incident (roughly ten or more in an adult, fewer in a small child), or any sting in someone with a known venom allergy.
Swelling that peaks 24 to 48 hours after the sting is normal and doesn’t mean your treatment failed. Our guides on normal wasp sting reactions and swelling after 48 hours cover what’s expected versus what’s concerning.
What is the best thing to put on a wasp sting? A cold compress in the first few hours, then 1% hydrocortisone cream for the itch and inflammation that follow. That covers most ordinary stings.
Does vinegar help a wasp sting? Not in the way it’s usually claimed. Wasp venom is close to neutral, and topical liquids can’t reach venom that’s already been injected beneath the skin. Vinegar is harmless on intact skin but no substitute for a cold compress.
Should I put baking soda on a wasp sting? You can — it’s harmless and some people find the cool paste soothing. It isn’t neutralizing anything, though, so don’t use it instead of cold and hydrocortisone.
Can I put Neosporin on a wasp sting? It isn’t needed for an uninfected sting, and neomycin is a common cause of allergic skin reactions. Reserve topical antibiotics for a site that’s broken open, and see a doctor if you suspect actual infection.
Is Benadryl cream good for a wasp sting? No — topical diphenhydramine can cause allergic contact dermatitis and adds to your dose if you’re also taking it orally. Use hydrocortisone cream instead, and take the Benadryl by mouth if you need an antihistamine.
How long should I keep ice on a wasp sting? Ten to twenty minutes at a time, with similar breaks in between, through the first several hours. Always wrap it in cloth rather than applying ice directly.
What should I put on a wasp sting that’s still itching days later? Continue 1% hydrocortisone, add an oral antihistamine if the itch is disrupting sleep, and keep the site covered so you don’t scratch it. Itch lasting several days is normal; expanding redness and increasing pain after day two are not.
Does toothpaste work on a wasp sting? Only as a cooling sensation from menthol, and its detergents can irritate broken skin. A cold compress does the same job better.
What to put on a wasp sting is a shorter list than the internet suggests: something cold first, 1% hydrocortisone after, and a topical anesthetic if pain or itch is stubborn. Wash the site before any of it, and take off rings if the sting is on a hand.
The rest of the popular remedies split into two groups. Calamine, baking soda, oatmeal, and aloe are harmless and mildly soothing — use them if they’re what you have. Topical Benadryl, benzocaine, undiluted essential oils, meat tenderizer, aspirin paste, and household solvents are worth actively avoiding, because each can add a second skin problem on top of the sting.
Then watch for the two things that genuinely matter: allergic symptoms in the first hour, and signs of infection after day two. Nearly every wasp sting that turns into a real problem does so through one of those two routes — not because of which cream you chose.
This article is educational information for homeowners, not medical advice. If you have a known venom allergy, a severe reaction, or any doubt about a sting, contact a medical professional.