Citronella has an unmistakable scent since it is frequently employed in bug repellent formulations. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils states that it is thought to be effective for keeping off insects like fleas and mosquitoes among other things.
Citronella, which contains citronellal, citronellol, geraniol, citral, pinene, and limonene, was demonstrated to be just as effective as DEET when applied topically or sprayed decades ago (source). However, the oils quickly lose their effectiveness, leaving the person exposed. The addition of that dependable vanillin to both plant-based and DEET repellents, however, increased the protection time by roughly two hours, according to a more recent study that examined the efficacy of numerous other repellants available on the market, including citronella (source).
Citronella candles are a popular option for people who wish to spend time outdoors without the annoyance of bothersome insects and are easily accessible in most places, especially during the spring and summer seasons. Try using citronella in diffusers for an even more powerful method; according to one study, this increased indoor insect repellency to 68 percent (from 14 percent for the candles).
Clove
A 2013 study used a volunteer’s forearm to show that clove oil coupled with coconut oil provided superior protection than citronella and lemongrass oils for 7696 minutes. According to some research, methyl eugenol, one of the trace elements found in clove oil, may be a carcinogen. Although the FDA considers it to be generally safe, the U.S. National Library of Medicine documented certain negative effects, such as headache and skin irritation.
Clove oil was shown to be the most effective of 38 essential oils tested on a volunteer’s forearm, providing 24 hours of mosquito repellency for all three species. Of all the oils tested, this had the longest duration.
But once more, it worked best when directly applied to the skin without being diluted, which can irritate the skin in the case of clove and many other oils.
Geranium
An extensive range of insects, including mosquitoes, flies, cockroaches, ants, fleas, gnats, and ticks, have been shown to be effectively repelled by geraniol, the active component in geranium oil. When its efficacy in the form of a candle or a diffuser was compared, the latter came out on top for both indoor and outdoor use (source). It even outperformed citronella. Place your diffuser in locations where bugs are known to congregate after adding a few drops to some water.
You may even surround the patio with a few of these bug-repelling plants. Look for citrosa geraniums, which repel insects with their powerful lemon aroma.
Which essential oil repels insects the best?
Five Essential Oils to Prevent Bugs
- Essential oil of peppermint. While most people find the scent of peppermint to be energizing and pleasant, most insects detest it.
- Essential oil of lemongrass.
- The essential oil of cedar.
- Essential oil of lavender.
- Tea tree oil is used.
Are geraniums effective at warding off insects?
Bugs can be an annoyance, whether they are invading your outdoor picnic or have entered your home. They are frequently drawn to the aromas of your food or even some floral arrangements. Consider using specific plants as decorations if you occasionally get flies or wish to keep mosquitoes away from your upcoming outdoor celebration.
Chrysanthemums, which are distinguished by their voluminous clusters of vibrant petals, not only cheer up your home but also ward off pests like roaches, fleas, and ants. In actuality, many insects are poisoned by a substance called pyrethrum, which is found in chrysanthemums. Because of this, these blooms are frequently a component in industrial pesticides.
If you have animals, you might wish to avoid chrysanthemums or keep them out of the reach of your four-legged companions because pyrethrums are poisonous to animals as well.
Marigolds, another bright plant, serve a dual purpose by serving as both a lovely ornament and an insect repellent. Similar to chrysanthemums, marigolds have pyrethrums, which deter a range of insects. Plant marigolds around the perimeter of your property or the places nearby where you eat and rest if you want to keep annoying insects away from your outdoor living spaces. The pyrethrums will build an invisible barrier that bugs won’t want to pass.
Of course, you can also select bouquets with marigolds for your interior spaces. Keep your dogs away from the blooms.
Petunias prefer lots of sunlight and come in a variety of vibrant colors. They also deter aphids, squash bugs, and beetles. Additionally, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, petunias are not poisonous to either cats or dogs. This enables you to enjoy a bug-free home and garden with your four-legged buddies.
Since the insects that petunias repel are most likely to destroy your produce, they are perfect for planting adjacent to vegetable gardens.
Geraniums have clusters of blooms and come in vibrant hues like purple, scarlet, white, and yellow. Along with other insects, they are also known to repel mosquitoes. If you put geraniums outside, they will repel insects year after year because they are perennial plants. Summertime blooming lasts till the start of the frosty season.
A lovely technique to repel insects is with flowers. Consider using these plants if you wish to eat outside. Your pets may have consumed one of the blooms that are poisonous to animals if you find that they are lethargic or throwing up. In an emergency, contact your veterinarian right away.
Rosemary
Rosemary repels mosquitoes, making it one of your go-to oils for lake and hiking activities. Numerous studies have shown that this aroma is also ideal if you feel like you need extra energy and a fast “brain refresh,
Thyme
In one study, the mosquito-repelling abilities of thyme even outperformed those of DEET. Additionally, this essential oil aids with tick and chigger repellent. Thyme has long been utilized in various traditional medicines because of its potent antibacterial qualities.
Citronella
Wearing this citrus, grassy-floral smell will deter insects and fleas. Just bear in mind that compared to a repellent containing DEET, you’ll need to reapply it more frequently during the day. To keep moths and cockroaches away, you can also hang citronella-infused sachets from your closet and kitchen.
Sage
This herb has a distinctively energizing aroma that many people have described as restorative and purifying. Numerous studies have demonstrated clary sage’s unique antimicrobial and mood-enhancing effects. You can wear sage essential oil to ward off insects, such as ticks, chiggers, and flies.
Lavender
The word “relaxation” has come to be associated with lavender in modern culture. This herb supports better sleep, mood, and digestion in all of its forms (tea, topical remedies, etc.). An added benefit of lavender essential oil is that it repels ticks, fleas, flies, and mosquitoes.
Peppermint
Given that it can help keep away ticks, spiders, roaches, moths, flies, fleas, beetles, and ants, peppermint essential oil may be the holy grail of natural insect repellents to use around the openings to your home. Use this oil in sachets next to your windows and doors, or try constructing a diffuser or spray.
Which aromas of essential oils do bugs detest?
We agree that natural insect repellents sound fantastic. Who wouldn’t want to use a plant-based natural insect repellent? However, after studying the data and consulting with two mosquito specialists, we categorically advise against purchasing essential-oil repellents. Simply said, it is impossible to determine whether or not they will be beneficial. You can be going outside with a false sense of security if you rely on them, which could put you at more risk than if you were using nothing at all.
The repercussions of an inadequate repellent can be severe in light of illnesses like Zika and Lyme, so you need one you can rely on. The EPA clearance of a repellant is a prerequisite for its credibility as it attests to the product’s extensive testing to ensure its safety and compliance with the manufacturer’s specifications. Since there is no such established oversight for essential oils, you are essentially on your own.
Why you should trust us
Leslie Vosshall, a professor of neuroscience at The Rockefeller University, was another person with whom we communicated. Vosshall has spent the last 30 years researching insects, with the last 15 of those focused on mosquitoes and insect repellents.
I’ve done my homework and created guides on ant control, fly swatters, mosquito control equipment, and bug repellents. In the course of that, I’ve put in at least 300 hours reviewing products, testing insect gear, reading in-depth analyses of the effectiveness of repellents and pesticides, and speaking with academics, manufacturers, and EPA scientists.
What are essential oils?
The EPA (PDF) states that essential oils are compounds taken from plants that are “they are in charge of the plant’s particular flavor or smell. They can be compared to the plant’s distilled essence. Studies on plant-based insect repellents have revealed that certain of these oils can deter insects to varied degrees, as this summary from a 2011 issue of Malaria Journal demonstrates. Citronella, eucalyptus, and catnip oils are the ones most closely linked to repellency, while other options include clove, patchouli, peppermint, and geranium oils. based on one review, “Approximately 10% of the more than 3,000 EOs [essential oils] from diverse plants that have been examined so far are currently sold commercially as possible pesticides and repellents. When combined with water or other inert components, the recipes we examined are often a blend of several oils at extremely low concentrations—rarely beyond 3 or 4 percent each.
Why essential oils’ lack of EPA oversight matters
According to the EPA’s product-performance test criteria, any insect repellent containing DEET or picaridin must go through comprehensive, regular testing. The end result is a legally enforceable label on the bottle. The components, the duration of protection, toxicity details, and particular usage and disposal instructions are all listed on the label. The tests provide you with a thorough understanding of the repellent and a solid guarantee that it is safe to use on people, children, and animals. Essential oils are categorized as a by the EPA “They don’t go through this testing since the pesticide is low risk. You cannot determine what is in the bottle, whether it is safe to use, or how effective it is without it. Additionally, it opens the potential for deceptive marketing claims. Zwiebel informed us, “The ability to misinform or entirely misinform consumers and the lack of regulatory control worry me a lot. There is a great deal of chaos in the field.
“With these products, people believe they are safe from ticks and biting insects, but they are not. Professor of neurobiology at The Rockefeller University Leslie Vosshall
The EPA has a very limited level of participation with essential oil repellents. The organization mandates that producers describe the components and their concentration levels, that the repellent’s container not contain any deceptive information, and “may not make claims that link pests with any particular disease or that they can control rodent, insect, or microbiological pests. In other words, an essential oil label may state that the product deters ticks and mosquitoes but not that it can shield you from Lyme, Zika, or any other diseases spread by vectors. Repellents with EPA approval, such as those using picaridin or DEET, can blatantly state that they provide protection from particular maladies. There’s a big difference.
If you want to protect yourself against disease-carrying insects, it’s important to know how long the repellency will persist, which very few essential oil labels actually mention. There’s no way to know what kind of protection you could be getting (or if you’re getting any protection at all), even if you have knowledge of essential oils and an understanding of their concentration in a repellant. Zwiebel clarified: “The preparation and degree of purity of these essential oils will determine how beneficial they are. He went on, “You truly have no idea what you’re purchasing.
To be fair to essential oil producers, there is no established procedure for them to follow in order to obtain the EPA’s seal of approval as a bug repellant. Since these oils aren’t considered pesticides, they shouldn’t be tested using the EPA’s methods, which serve as the only yardstick for evaluating their ability to deter disease vectors. Ironically, essential oils’ relative safety is exactly what keeps them out of the top division of repellents that the EPA has approved, and that won’t change until the EPA updates its own rules. We can only rely on the information that is currently available for now, and for the same reason that we advise against using oils as mosquito repellents, most specialists consider oils as dangerous.
Essential oil repellents provide little more than a false sense of security because it is unknown how effective they are, and this can have negative effects. Vosshall clarified: “With these products, people believe they are protected from ticks and biting insects, but they are not. She went on, “These persons run the risk of being bitten and infected if they are in places where ticks are transmitting Lyme disease and other related infections, and mosquitoes are spreading Zika, malaria, dengue, yellow fever, west nile, and chikungunya. She assured us that she would never advocate using an essential oil repellant. Zwiebel is similarly unconvinced of their efficiency: “He assured us that he doesn’t purchase any of those goods. In a related conclusion, an article in The New England Journal of Medicine states, “Alternative “natural” products typically fall short of their reputations for improved safety and efficacy and provide their customers a fictitious sense of security. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also suggests picaridin, DEET, or another insect repellent that is subject to EPA regulation. The CDC’s list excludes any repellents made with essential oils. (The CDC and the repellent summary from the Malaria Journal both distinguish oil of lemon eucalyptus as a plant-based, EPA-approved repellent but not as an essential oil.)
Regulations aside, they don’t work that well
All indicators point to essential oils falling short of repellents containing picaridin and DEET, even if they were required to follow the EPA’s efficacy-testing requirements. Simply put, essential oils are not very effective in keeping ticks and mosquitoes away.
The fact that essential oils are highly volatile, which means they quickly evaporate, is a significant issue. Seven essential oil repellents were put to the test against DEET in 2002, with the results being published in The New England Journal of Medicine. A soybean-based repellent that gave 95 minutes of protection was the only alternative option “The average protection time of all the other botanical repellents we examined was less than 20 minutes. No essential oil, even when used at the extremely high concentrations of 10% and 50%, was found to be effective for repelling mosquitoes for up to two hours in a 2005 study that was published in the journal Phytotherapy Research. (You should anticipate even less from the repellents we examined, which contained a variety of oils with concentrations ranging from 1 to 4 percent.) According to a different study that was published in BioMed Research International, “Reapplying citronella oil-based insect repellents is required every 2060 minutes.
Furthermore, they lack picaridin or DEET’s potency even when they are just being administered. The olfactory expert Zwiebel stated that a mosquito uses a number of chemical receptors, perhaps hundreds, to comprehend its environment. He compared these receptors to the massive group of microphones that are placed in front of a politician at a podium. Most of these receptors are tuned to smells, although some are also sensitive to taste, heat, and humidity. They can be many depending on the species, “hundreds, at times. Zwiebel claims that the mosquito that transmits malaria, Anopheles gambiae, possesses “A large number of gustatory receptors, 79 odor receptors, 34 ionotropic receptors, receptors for heat and humidity, and many more. These different perspectives, according to Zwiebel, make the fragrance of a human “is not just one molecule, neither is it just one smell. He went on, “Actually, a wide variety of receptors are activated by many, many different chemicals.
To prevent a mosquito or tick from locating you, repellents act by inhibiting these receptors. Essential oils, according to Zwiebel “just a few specific receptors are blocked. Even closely related species have distinct receptors, which complicates matters further. Accordingly, Zwiebel wasn’t confident that an essential oil that would be effective for one species would also be effective for a variety of others. On the other hand, repellents like picaridin and DEET consistently block a greater variety of receptors, as evidenced by studies like Vosshall’s. This provides repellency to numerous species.
Given the serious consequences of tick and mosquito bites, we advise using a repellent with a 20% concentration of the active component picaridin, together with a permethrin-based repellent that should be applied at the very least to your shoes to protect against ticks. Both products are EPA-approved, and their labels include detailed information on the contents, how to use them, and how long they will last. We recommend a 25 percent concentration of DEET if you decide to use it, which we also support. We concur with the authors of the 2011 study from Malaria Journal, who state that using essential oils, repellents can be more effective than chemical repellents “Further standardized studies are required to improve the evaluation of repellent compounds and create new goods that are both highly repellent and safe for consumers.
Essential oils we tried and would not recommend
We tested six well-known essential oil repellents, but it was impossible to predict the level and duration of repellency with any of them. Testing them also revealed an additional possible issue—or advantage, depending on your preferences—they have very intense smells. Zwiebel stated, “Eventually, you start to smell like a fruit basket. The practically odorless picaridin formulations we’ve tried are far more appealing to us. Not just mosquitoes use smell cues to choose which individuals to hang out with.
Ambiguous labeling is elevated to a new level by DoTerra’s TerraShield. “Bug,” “insect,” and “Oddly, repellant aren’t mentioned on the label or in the marketing materials. Instead, there are ambiguous mentions of “environmental annoyances” and “outside protection”. There are no instructions on how much or how frequently to apply the material, or even if it works as a repellant at all (DoTerra has been contacted for comment). Customer testimonials reveal a different picture: They almost all mention how well it works against mosquitoes and other insects, and at least one of them writes, “I would advise anyone seeking for a DEET substitute to try this.
Independent scientific testing has been done on US Organic Anti Bug Spray, Sky Organics Organic Bug Spray, and Nantucket Spider’s Natural Deet-free Bug Repellent, but there is currently no formal advice on how frequently each one should be used to ensure complete protection from mosquitoes and ticks. Although US Organic’s testing shows a repellency lasting at least four hours, it is hard to know how the spray would perform under the same conditions that picaridin and DEET are tested under because the testing procedures are so dissimilar from those used by the EPA. In other words, the “four hours” may not always correspond to the “four hours” listed on a label that has received EPA approval. The New England Journal of Medicine study from 2002 found that the soybean oil in the US Organic and Sky Organics repellents (40 percent and 23 percent, respectively) was somewhat effective, although there are other studies that contradict this finding.
Mexitan’s Skedattle All Natural Anti-Bug Spray’s Amazon page notes that the mixture is “16 TIMES MORE EFFECTIVE than bug repellents using DEET. What even does that mean? it lasts sixteen times as long? that it shuts down 16 times as many receptors? We most likely won’t ever find out. We emailed the company several times but never received a response.
The most interesting illustration of what can happen in the absence of regulatory control is Shabby Chick Insect Repellent. According to the product page for the manufacturer, the repellant contains catnip oil “DEET has been shown to be 10 times less effective than catnip. No lie! This is a seductive argument, however our investigation only found one study (PDF) that made a comparable assertion, and when taken in its entirety, it presents a totally different picture. First, unlike what it claims, the study was about spatial repellency rather than contact repellency “not involve any host or attractant. Catnip oil’s effectiveness as a contact repellent was evaluated in a different study, which concluded that DEET was superior. Second, at the same doses, catnip oil was 10 times more potent than DEET. The Shabby Chick labeling gives no indication of the amount of catnip oil in its formulation, despite our recommendation for a DEET concentration of 25 percent. Catnip oil isn’t even included among the active components. It’s one of the harmless components (the only active ingredient is 1 percent cedarwood oil).
We discovered Greenerways Organic Insect Repellent during our 2020 study. As with the others, there is no way to know how effective it will be against ticks and mosquitoes because it lacks EPA certification.