Greening your insect repellent

If you’d like to avoid some of the stronger chem­i­cals in tra­di­tional insect repel­lents, like DEET and some other phtha­lates, here are some options. Remem­ber, though, that these sprays need to be reap­plied more often.

On the web­site Care2.com, a post by Annie B. Bond gave a home-made recipe for repel­lents using essen­tial oils. The basic recipe calls for 1 to 25 drops of essen­tial oil, two table­spoons of veg­etable or olive oil, and one table­spoon of aloe vera gel (optional). Com­bine in a glass jar and shake to blend. Apply by dab­bing a few drops on skin and/or cloth­ing. (Cau­tion: preg­nant women should always con­sult a doc­tor before using). Bond rec­om­mends the fol­low­ing essen­tial oils for par­tic­u­lar bugs (mix a bot­tle for each bug problem):

–Ticks: rose gera­nium (first choice); palmerosa, bay, eucalyptus

–Mos­qui­toes: Pen­ny­royal, lemon balm (cit­ronella), thyme, lavender

–Black flies: sas­safras, laven­der, euca­lyp­tus, cedar, peppermint

The Daily Green web­site made some rec­om­men­da­tions of more nat­ural repel­lents on the mar­ket now. You could prob­a­bly find some of these at Pure-n-Simple Health Food Store in Delaware, Raisin Rack in West­er­ville or Whole Foods in Dublin or check with your local gro­cer as many of them might carry at least one alter­na­tive brand. Daily Green men­tioned: Cal­i­for­nia Baby Nat­ural Bug Blend, Aubrey Organ­ics Gone, Bad­ger Anti-bug Balm, Kiss My Face Swy Flot­ter, Repel Lemon Euca­lyp­tus Repel­lent, and Bite Blocker Herbal Wipes. The Delaware County Com­mu­nity Mar­ket sells a repel­lent made by a local com­pany called The Delaware Can­dle and Soap Company.

To find out more about nat­ural repel­lents and how they are rated for tox­i­c­ity, log onto the Envi­ron­men­tal Work­ing Group web­site and search their Skin Deep data­base for insect repel­lents (ewg.org).

The best strat­egy is to dress to avoid the bites and not to don any per­fumes, lotions and other fra­grances that make you smell appe­tiz­ing. Also, con­sider using cit­ronella can­dles, mos­quito traps and other non-toxic repel­lents, then you can avoid the sprays altogether.

Good luck at keep­ing the bugs at bay!

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and mother of three, soon to be four, with a spe­cial inter­est in green living.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Jul 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.