The tick population has been out of control at our house this year. The season started early, and with a vengeance, and by the time we headed to Florida for our vacation, we were ready for a break from them.
Unfortunately, two-and-a-half weeks without mowing meant that our yard was quite jungle-like when we returned, and that meant that the ticks were even worse than they had been when we left. To the point that we flushed more than 30 ticks in a single day. {shudder}
I had randomly come across a homemade tick spray post on Facebook. At the same time, we were gone, and a little more Googling identified three essential oils that have bug-repellent properties: lemongrass, eucalyptus, and peppermint. (Cloves is also high on the list, but I didn’t have any of that on hand, so I decided to stick with what I had.)
I then filled a 2-ounce spray bottle (from the travel toiletries section at Walmart) with water and added 10 drops of each oil. I wasn’t sure how the combo would smell, but thankfully, it smells amazing.
We sprayed the girls down from head to toe and sent them out to play, and for the first time since we’d gotten back, we didn’t spend the day pulling off ticks. I still found two ticks in our 7-year-old’s hair at bedtime, but she has long, thick hair, and I’m not sure it’s fair to count that as a failure! (We’ve started making sure it’s in a ponytail whenever she goes out, which also helps.)
The spray also helps keep the mosquitoes away, which is good since our jungle-like yard also seemed to breed a scary size mosquito while we were gone.
We have found that we need to reapply it every few hours for it to stay effective, and I end up using about 0.5 ounces per application (for all four girls), but that still breaks down to a cost of about $0.60/day (assuming a cost of $6-7/bottle of oil), which is well worth it to us!
Ingredients:
- 2 ounces of water
- 10 drops eucalyptus oil
- 10 drops lemongrass oil
- 10 drops peppermint oil
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle.
Spray each person generously. Be sure to have kids close their eyes before spraying their heads and face.
Do you have ticks or mosquitoes at your house? Try this homemade tick and mosquito spray.
