Homemade Mosquito Repellents Are Healthy and Effective

Did you have that feeling when the first truly warm weather arrived, that you had forgotten how pleasant it actually is? We certainly did. Somehow it happens every single year. And you know what? Absolutely every year it also happens to us that we forget what a pain it is when we get attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes.

This happened to us last week when we wanted to open the grilling season with friends. But take this – mosquitoes, to whom no one had sent an invitation, were also present and the evening was far from what was planned with these uninvited guests!

After that dreadful evening, we conducted a small survey among our acquaintances to see if anyone had found some kind of homemade mosquito repellent that didn't contain too many chemicals but would do its job effectively. Here are the results of our research. We haven't tried all of them ourselves yet and can't promise that they work, but since there are hopefully still quite a few warm summer evenings ahead, you can test some of them yourself.

Let's skip chemicals this time and try healthier options. Here and there you can hear opinions that it's healthier to let a mosquito bite you than to put mosquito poison on yourself.

Thicker clothes

By thicker clothes we don't mean a down jacket (although that too might wear out by midsummer), but sturdy fabric that a mosquito can't penetrate, like denim. Thicker clothes and longer sleeves don't protect your face, of course, but let's look at some creams that will keep your face safe from mosquitoes too.

Homemade mosquito repellent

When we got recommendations from several acquaintances to use essential oils, this topic started to interest us more and as a result of a little Googling, it turned out that repelling mosquitoes with essential oils is very popular and for good reason. It seems these actually work! Homemade remedies may not last as long as toxic chemicals, but you can apply them to your body as much as you want – they are healthy and smell wonderful.

What do you need?

You only need a few ingredients: essential oil, a bit of regular alcohol, distilled water, and base oil. For essential oils, eucalyptus, lemongrass, rosemary, lavender, peppermint, tea tree, sage, cedar, etc. oils work well.

Make it like this, for example. Take a small spray bottle and put in:

2 tablespoons of alcohol,

2 tablespoons of olive oil or some other oil that works as base oil,

100 drops of your favorite essential oil or a mixture of oils.

Add distilled or boiled water so that the mixture can be shaken in the bottle. Spray on skin.

If our explanation is too complicated, you can watch a short video here on how to make such a wonderful remedy.

If you don't want to spray, you can increase the amount of base oil and simply rub the mixture on your skin, for example on wrists, neck, and behind the ears.

Essential oils also have a positive effect on mood, so by using such a mixture you kill two birds with one stone. Not to mention the mosquitoes.

Choose a windier sitting spot

In some cases, a slightly windier location helps. The breeze shouldn't be so strong that it ruins your mood, but it should have a repelling effect on mosquitoes.

Smoking coffee

Right, you read correctly – smoking. We got the recommendation to put some coffee grounds on a plate (with foil underneath if you wish) and set them on fire. The smoking heap is supposed to spread a pleasant aroma and keep mosquitoes away. We plan to try this remedy soon.

A modern flower bouquet in a vase

Fresh basil smells wonderful, but mosquitoes apparently don't like it. The same goes for other strongly-scented plants like lavender, peppermint, rosemary. Make a proper bouquet from these and put it in a vase. We also plan to try this mosquito repellent during the summer.

Incense smoking

We've already tested this remedy and it works effectively. We placed our favorite, sandalwood incense in the middle of the table and those sitting around the table were spared from a major mosquito attack that evening.

Sit indoors

One acquaintance told us that the best remedy against mosquitoes is to sit indoors, but even though we agree with this in theory, we don't intend to follow this advice.

Have a wonderful mosquito-free summer!