How To Make A Homemade Bug Spray? Most of the homeowners buy bug repellents to fight the insect infestation in their house. But did you know that you can make a bug spray in homemade conditions?
Here is the recipe for the best DIY bug repellent that will help you keep nasty inspects in check.
Table of Contents
For starters, make sure you have all the needed ingredients at hand. The spray consists of a variety of essential oils including: rosemary, lavender, lemon eucalyptus, geranium and citronella. All of them possess fascinating bug-repelling properties.
If you wonder how do essential oils repel bugs, it’s simple. The strong fragrance impedes the insects from feeling the smell of lactic acid and carbon dioxide. All they need from you are these two elements.
And when they lose track of them, your body is not interesting for them anymore.
As a warning for you, essential oils may pose a risk if you apply them directly on the skin. Especially vulnerable is children’s skin. That’s why, you are better off to avoid spraying the repellent on the skin.
Instead, you can go for clothes and other surfaces from your house, like furniture, windows, and floor. For your recipe, you will also need vodka or rubbing alcohol, water, and witch hazel. Vodka is famous for its ability to kill insects or at least to compromise their orientation in space and stamina.
The first step in preparing the homemade bug spray is combining all essential oils together. Keep an eye on proportions, as some oils may stink too much, hence, you need less of them.
You will need 30 drops of geranium and 30 of citronella, 20 drops of lemon eucalyptus, and 20 of lavender. In the case of rosemary, you will only go with 10 drops. Combine all these proportions in a spray bottle. Agitate the bottle to help the ingredients blend into one.
Add some rubbing alcohol and carry on shaking. Then, add half a cup of witch hazel and shake energetically. Next comes half a cup of water, which tends to make mixture more liquid and easy to spray.
Keep in mind that water and oils separate from each other. That’s why you need to shake before each use to force the two components to blend.
Keep the bottle in easy reach to apply when needed. However, you are better off to find a place that children aren’t likely to visit. After all, such a concentration of essential oils and rubbing alcohol doesn’t have to be in children’s uncontrolled use.
It is something you make strictly for pests. The child may want to try it in many ways, which can lead to eye problems and itchy skin. Speaking of skin, you better keep the spray away from human skin, even when we talk about adults.
The powerful essential oils mixture may cause discomfort to the skin, specifically making it itchy and red. While being concentrated, essential oils don’t harm cloths, furniture, or other fabrics in any way.
That’s why you are free to sprinkle the solution in large quantities to force the bugs dead. After all, it’s never too difficult to prepare another mixture after you finish the first bottle. You have to focus on pests and the harm they bring and consider less the investments you make.
While the mixture is incredibly potent at repelling bugs, you can increase its power even more by adding new ingredients. It can be vanilla extract which is as powerful in tackling insects as essential oils. Besides, you can add fresh plants you find in your yard or store, such as lavender, mint, and thyme.
Making a homemade bug spray is a no-brainer. The biggest problem would probably be finding the ingredients in the store than the preparation itself. For a powerful insect-repelling spray, you need a combination of essential oils, vodka, and water.
All you have to do is adding the ingredients into a spray bottle and mix. Since the oil separates from water, you will permanently need to shake the bottle to force the ingredients to reunite. You can apply the spray on all kinds of surfaces, except for the skin.
The high concentration of oils may affect the skin in a negative way, causing itching and redness.
