I made my own mosquito repellant today. This makes me sound very resourceful, but I am learning that resourcefulness is actually sometimes a mask that lazy people wear.
I am freaked out by DEET. I don’t want that junk on me or my kids for any extended period of time. On top of that, all the bug spray available in stores smells horrendous. Clay’s asthma kicks into high-gear when he smells the stuff, and it gives us both headaches. There is one we found last year that sort of passes the smell test, which only means it bugs us less than everything else, but it was by no means nice to use.
So when you add up all the time I would spend trying to find a spray that isn’t completely disgusting, and the literal headache I would have after smelling all those bug sprays, making my own bug repellant was actually the simple option. It took me all of two minutes. Can you drive to the store, choose a product, pay for it, and drive home in that amount of time?
I got the recipe here.
And here’s how I did it:
In a spray bottle, fill it halfway with witch hazel.
Add boiled water that has been cooled, almost to the top.
Add essential oils. The original recipe has quite a few that are recommended, and I chose three that were a pretty safe bet, given our scentsitivites. Lemongrass, peppermint, and tea tree. 50 drops total.
That’s it!
Now, I hope it works.
where’d you get your essential oils?
You’ll have to let us know how it works. I don’t like a lot of commercial bug sprays either, but I need something effective because the mosquitos seem to think I’m an uncontrolled diabetic.
Jean, I ordered them, and the witch hazel, through Purity Life.
James, I’ll let you know when I know 🙂
I use a store-bought natural bug spray; sounds like pretty similar ingredients. It works pretty well, but you have to reapply more often than regular stuff. It works good enough for us. If the bugs are that bad we just go inside.