Essential Oil Insect Repellent Mixtures

By Karen Wood


After this long and cold winter, it's time for summer, for grilling with friends and enjoying spending time outside the house. And then come these lovely insects to spice the whole experience. Luckily, they don't like certain plants' scents, and it is relatively easy to make your own essential oil insect repellent mixture and keep those ugly vampires away from your loved ones.

There are some plants that naturally repel certain insects. For example, mosquitoes don't like peppermint, lemon, eucalyptus or Thyme. They won't be coming near cinnamon, geranium or sage either. Clove can also be effective in scaring them away, or maybe rosemary and lavender. These lovely essential oils can be used to create beautifully scented repellents.

Other nasty creatures such as flies cannot bare tea tree oil, and won't appreciate being near peppermint or eucalyptus either. They especially dislike cedar wood, and don't like Patchouli, and all these info can be cleverly used to protect you and your family members and friends this summer. Keep in mind that there are some other plants that will appeal certain insects, and one of such plants is known as lemongrass. It is well-known that bees just love it.

Ticks, on the other hand, dislike plans such as geranium, cedar wood, peppermint and popular tea tree oil. Thyme is another plant ticks will gladly avoid, and all this can be used in protecting your family efficiently. The best thing is that you can make your own, personal mixtures, and create really appealing scents you will enjoy wearing.

Home repellents are really simple to make, especially rub-on ones. Basically, there are two ways of applying repellents - you can rub them in or spray them on your skin. Of course, you cannot apply essential oils directly on your skin, because some are quite hot, or could cause allergic reactions. They should be combined with oil carriers such as coconut oil, almond oil or sweet avocado oil.

For making really simple rub on repellent you need some kind of carrier oil, such as sweet almond oil, or maybe avocado or coconut oil. Using a carrier oil is really important, because some essential oils can be quite aggressive on your skin, if you don't dilute them with carrier oil, for example beautifully scented cinnamon, or also eucalyptus essential oil.

For a small quantity of this rub-on lotion you can use two table spoons of selected carrier and approximately eight drops of essential oils total, in desired combination. You may use, for example, 2-3 drops of peppermint, with a drop or two of eucalyptus, combining this with your favorite scents, for example lemon. Citruses can be quite aggressive as well.

For making a spray repellent, you have to add distilled water and witch hazel in your designed mixture, because oils will certainly clog the spray without this. You may replace witch hazel with, for example, vodka, in one small quantity, of course. You should never include plants such as lemongrass in any repellent, because bees simply love this scent, and this really would not be a very good idea.




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