A DEET-Less Summer
For most, summer is almost here again, and if you live in the South, particularly Texas, you know that summer IS here!!! The only thing higher than gas prices is the ever elevating temperatures! Sad, but true. Besides the heat, mosquitos in Texas can ruin outdoor activities very quickly. Last summer, I began researching bug sprays and the infamous DEET or its chemical name N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide, and found that DEET is a known pesticide, and the active ingredient in most bug repellents. If DEET can kill mosquitoes because it is a pesticide, then I have to wonder what it is doing to me when I cover my body in it and when it absorbs into my skin. There is also something very disturbing to me about smelling and breathing a known pesticide.
A few ingredients I have discovered to repel mosquitos and other bugs :
Lavender
Cedar
Lemon grass
Cinnamon
Vanilla ( Extract)
Citronella
Neem
A few evenings ago, while outside, it was not long before the mosquitos began their personal attack on me. I concocted a spray of the following ingredients, most should be easy to find in grocery stores.
1 cup of water
2 tablespoons of vanilla extract (Yes, like the kind you bake with!)
10 drops of lavender oil.
You might need to tweak the amounts of ingredients to your personal preference. I sprayed a very light mist on myself and the area around me and my mosquito problem quickly resolved. My neighbor commented on how great this spray smelled too!
Another option I found is Badger Anti-Bug Balm. This balm has a pleasant lemon smell and comes in a very convenient metal tin, that has actually been tumbling around the bottom of my purse since I bought it.
Ingredients: Castor Oil, Citronella, Rosemary, Cedar, Geranium, Olive Oil, Beeswax
Check it out at www.badgerbalm.com
Badger Anti- Bug Balm also comes in a larger tin, a rub on stick and a spray!
I hope this helps in the mosquito/bug department of summer. I am amazed at how such simple ingredients really can work.
I look forward to any comments. As you can tell this is my first blog post and I promise to try and make my subsequent posts less amateur. By the way, I also really like dumb blog post titles, so please bear with me. I will try to post weekly. If you like what you read, please subscribe to my blog in the top right corner.
Happy. Healthy. Holistic. 