All ingredients for your homemade bug spray can be found here.

Use an alcohol, witch hazel, or filtered water based spray for quick remedy, or a carrier oil for for long-lasting protection and itch relief from pre-existing bug bites!

Homemade Bug Repellent:

To make a spray, use 1 part essential oil to 10 parts of witch hazel, filtered water, or high-proof vodka/rubbing alcohol. Apple cider vinegar can also be used as a base, but as you can imagine, it doesn’t smell too pleasant. For example, if you add 1 tablespoon of lavender essential oil to your spray bottle, you would dilute it with 10 tablespoons of your liquid of choice. To make things simpler, I used about 60 drops of essential oils in a 2 oz spray bottle. 

Keep your homemade bug repellant handy while outside, as you may need to reapply during the day. 

To make an oil, fill 3% of the total volume of your oil bottle with essential oils. For example, if you have a 100 mL bottle, 3 mL would be filled with your essential oils of choice while the remaining 97 mL would be your carrier oil. 

There are plenty of options for carrier oils, like almond oil, avocado oil, and argan oil, but jojoba is my recommended carrier oil. Allergies to jojoba oil are very rare and it most closely mimics the natural oils of the skin (called sebum) which minimizes the chance of feeling super greasy after applying.

Best Essential Oils to Use

Your essential oil mosquito repellent recipe will vary based on your needs. Here are some of the best essential oils to use for different types of insects:

Rosemary: mosquitoes

Thyme: mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks

Citronella: mosquitoes, fleas

Sage: chiggers, flies, and ticks

Lavender: mosquitoes, fleas, flies, ticks. Lavender essential oil diluted in a carrier oil is also a great remedy to soothe the itch from pre-existing bug bites.

Peppermint: spiders, ticks, roaches, moths, flies, fleas, beetles, ants

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