Peppermint oil is great for keeping pests away from houseplants, but be sure that you get the 100 percent pure, organically sourced kind. Place a cotton ball with one or two drops of the oil on it close to your plants or in an area where you frequently see insects.
Are plants poisonous to peppermint oil?
Peppermint oil varies widely. Use only Mentha Piperita, is what I advise. I use this in my garden and sell it on my website. The perfume is the strongest, although it is a little more pricey. Make sure the label for the peppermint oil reads Mentha Piperita wherever you decide to purchase it. You want the most potent aroma. The recipe I use is listed at the conclusion of this post.
There are essentially two things that peppermint oil accomplishes to deter insects from entering your garden. It irritates you and covers the aromas of your veggie plants.
Very little insects like spider mites are effectively repelled by it. Some oil sprays are reported to suffocate and kill soft-bodied insects. That is accurate, but peppermint oil’s fragrance is what makes it popular. To create an insect smothering oil spray, much more oil would be required. For such use, cheaper unscented oils work better.
Insects use both sight and smell to find plants. That is why flowers are generally perfumed and colorful. Even if you use peppermint oil sprays, many of your pollinators will still be able to locate your garden with ease.
You break the plant when you harvest vegetables. When you choose a cucumber, tomato, or squash, you could detect three different smells. The odors are also detected by bothersome insects. The same scent or pheromones are released when pruning plants. Your peppermint spray assists in covering this up. Plant fragrances can also be released from damaged leaves caused by wind and severe rain.
Spraying on a schedule is essential for using peppermint oil effectively. I advise routinely spraying as a concealing smell every 5-7 days. You can spray the soil and the area around the plants. Spray a few leaves of each plant variety if you’re using the spray for the first time, then wait 48 hours to check for damage. When certain that your spray mixture won’t injure it, only completely cover a plant. This is a useful exercise before using any spray formulation on your garden.
Spray it every 3-5 days, being sure to penetrate under the leaves, if you are using it as a deterrent and irritant for tiny insects like spider mites.
Is it true that peppermint oil repels insects?
In addition to repelling ants, peppermint oil also keeps spiders away. Peppermint actually deters the majority of pests, including mice, aphids, beetles, caterpillars, fleas, flies, lice, and moths.
How much peppermint oil is needed to repel insects?
Consider putting a few drops of peppermint oil and hot water in a spray bottle. 5 to 10 drops of essential oil per ounce of water is a decent ratio. Use the mixture to mist down hard-to-reach areas of the house where insects are frequently present, such as countertops, furniture, curtains, and blinds. Always test the oil in a tiny area beforehand to ensure that it won’t harm the objects you intend to spray it on.
If you’re going to be outside, you can also apply the mixture to your skin, but be sure to test it first since some people with sensitive skin might find the oil irritating.
Garden Insect Deterrent
- A 4-ounce glass spray bottle should contain 10 drops of each of the following essential oils: rosemary, peppermint, clove, and thyme.
- Shake the bottle to mix the remaining amount of water.
- Use wherever you want to get rid of insects.
Plant Fungus Suppressant
- 25 drops of melaleuca essential oil should be added to 4 ounces of water in a glass spray container.
- Spray on soil and plants to help prevent fungus growth.
Pollinator Attractor Spray
- Add 6 to 8 drops of orange oil to a 4-ounce glass spray bottle, then fill the rest with water.
- Shake to combine, then spray on flowers and buds to draw pollinating bees.
Fruit and Veggie Wash
To make a fruit and vegetable wash, you can use either regular vinegar or apple cider vinegar. For more cleaning power, add 6 to 8 drops of orange or lemon essential oil.
Want to avoid being bitten by insects while gardening? Utilize essential oils to create a homemade bug repellent.
Which essential oils protect plants from insects?
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 standards. We can only rely on the science that is currently available for now, and for the same reason that we advise against using oils as bug repellents, most experts dismiss oils as unsafe.
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 people run the risk of being bitten and infected if they are in areas where ticks are spreading Lyme disease and other related pathogens, 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 also 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 greater safety and efficacy and give their users 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.