Mosquitoes can turn a pleasant evening or walk into an irritating nightmare.
Many over the counter remedies for mosquitoes contain harmful ingredients such as DEET.
Fortunately, there are some safe and natural cures on hand. Here are 5 of them.
Candles
If you’re entertaining in the garden, light some citronella candles in the area you are sitting, to keep biting visitors at bay.
Herbs
If you have regular barbecues or al fresco dining then plants some herbs in pots around the area you sit.
Mosquito repellent herbs include basil, pennyroyal, tansy, rosemary, lemongrass and peppermint.
Essential oils
Put 5 drops of the following essential oils into a spray bottle:
citronella, lavender and clove.
Top up with water and spray liberally on your skin, onto your clothes and in your hair.
If clove is an irritant for you (it is for some people), try the following mix instead:
citronella, lavender, geranium and cedarwood.
Supplements
In order to make your skin less tasty, take a vitamin B capsule and a garlic capsule daily throughout the mosquito season.
Safe alternative
Natural collection stock Mozzy Off – a safe and natural insect repellent which is effective for up to six hours.
What about you – have you ever been bitten? What remedies do you use?
About the author
Rachelle Strauss, dubbed the Green Goddess, writes for various magazines about green and environmental issues. She writes down to earth, honest and informative articles to inspire and empower the reader. Look out for her first book to be published late summer 2009 – "Self Sufficiency: Household Cleaning", by New Holland Publishers. She lives with her husband and their daughter in semi-rural England and you can follow her family’s adventures towards achieving zero waste on her My Zero Waste website.
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I get bitten to shreds…and have tried everything. One thing that works well for me, due to the Vitamin B, is a blob of Marmite twice daily…eaten not smeared by the way. The latter would make one either very popular or the opposite
Hi mate – and I’ve recently found a spray called Incognito does a great job too if you don’t fancy making a bottle of your own. It’s available at many good eco shops and they’ve just started doing a refill scheme too (after I suggested they should…ehem…!)… It’s all great news as another wasted plastic bottle bites the dust! TS x
Marmite is an excellent solution, Tepsy. Great for kids too. Thanks for the heads up on Incognito, Tracey – I’ll look it out. Fab that you got them doing refills – you wonderful woman, you
LOLOL….it was as the UK Aware expo….there was a bloke in the corner selling Green Oil for your bike and he was doing it….the bottle was the same size, so I told them THEY should be doing it too and they said, we are, from ‘now’! LOL… Ah, spread the love missus… TS x
Thanks for these helpful tips. I don’t like being around anything that can bite me. Thanks for your contribution to Take Charge of Your Health Care.
Congratulations! This article was featured in the latest “Take Charge of your Healthcare” blog carnival: http://tinyurl.com/tcoyhcmay09 Keep up the good work!