Essential Oil Insect Repellent Mixtures

By Karen Wood


The summer is here, and it's great spending time outside, enjoying in nature and feeding insects. Well, this part of the whole summer experience is probably not so appealing. And it can be simply avoided using essential oil insect repellent. It is simple, perfectly natural and amazingly effective. And you can even make your own signature mixtures, depending on your taste.

Mother nature makes sure you can find something to protect you on perfectly natural way. For example, those blood sucking mosquitoes cannot bare some scents, such as cinnamon, geranium, rosemary and thyme. They will stay away from peppermint and eucalyptus, too, and lemon and lavender will always scare them away, and this really is something to feel good about.

Other nasty things such as flies have slightly different taste, although they also do not appreciate peppermint or eucalyptus. Or even rosemary and geranium. Other than these scents, flies dislike Patchouli, and won't appreciate cedar wood either. These lovely scents are really appealing for people, and this could be the perfect opportunity to combine something great with something really useful.

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.

There are two basic types of home-made repellents, rub on and spray ones. It is really simple to make any of these protective mixtures, depending on your particular taste, as well as of available ingredients. In any case, for making any of these repellents you will also need some other ingredients, but most of them you probably already have in your home.

Some basic ingredients you probably have in your home, and others can be simply found in the nearest store or in pharmacy. As it was said, it is very important not to apply essential oils as they are, but in such mixture. Some oils such as cinnamon are known as hot oils, and it means they can be aggressive on the skin. Using carrier oils will dilute it and make it harmless.

For making a perfect rub-on insect repellent, you will have to combine maybe eight drops of selected essential oils in your favorite combination with two large spoons of desired carrier oil. There are numerous combination that will be really effective, and it is always good to combine peppermint with some other appealing scents. In any case, don't use too much essentials.

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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