Take Your Oils for a Walk 1

Watch the video for a discussion of how I use essential oils to for their repellent properties.

Here is a transcript of my video:

Hi, it's Mary Beckett, and I'm here with Blue Ice Essentials. 

And today we're going to talk about insect repellent and bug sprays. And the reason I'm doing it at this time of year is even though we still have little bits of snow here and there on the ground, we've already spotted our first mosquitoes. And I know that for most people, we're well into the gardening season down in the southern part of Canada and the US. That means you've already been out in the bugs and are probably wishing that you had something that was effective but maybe didn't have a whole bunch of chemical toxins in it. 

So the thing about bug spray is that essential oils are a complete natural for it. The thing that you have to realize is that most bugs hate hate plants, or most plants, sorry, hate bugs, because bugs are a problem for them. So when you are looking at a plant and saying, ooh, I wonder if it would make a good bug repellent, it probably does. So that's sort of a big bonus. 

So there are a bunch of essential oils that have repellent properties for bugs. And it's just up to you what you want to use based on what's in your stash. And you can create a perfect bug spray for the summer - it's really quite simple. 

You're going to take and make a spray, or you can make a lotion, and I kind of prefer spray myself because it's easy to apply. But I know some people like the precision of a lotion, especially if you have small children. You like the precision of a lotion, because that allows you to put it exactly where you want it and nowhere else. So that is certainly an option. 

And either way, it just takes a few minutes of mixing and you're on your way. 

So first of all, I'm going to go through a list of some of the essential oils that are repellent to bugs. 

Now there's Citronella which is one that everybody's heard of, and Thyme and Cloves, and Wild Orange, On Guard Protective Blend has many of these things in it so of course it's also repellent. We have Cinnamon, Grapefruit, Basil, Eucalyptus, Purify Cleansing Blend, which I don't know whether you're familiar with it, but if you aren't, you should definitely get hold of it. It is really awesome sort of citrusy pine, a kind of mixture that I just really love. 

Spearmint, Cedarwood, Lemongrass is another good one, Patchouli, Lavender, Lemon, Sandalwood, Arbor Vitae, Geranium, Peppermint, Rosemary, Cassia, Tea Tree or Melaleuca, Lemon Eucalyptus, and Jasmine and Rose. Oh and Clary Sage - I almost forgot. 

So these are all options. And so obviously that's a huge list. And so how do you just decide which ones are you going to put into your mixture? 

Well, to create a spray, what I did the very first time I did it was I looked at this grand list and I said, Well, what do I have in my stash? And I grabbed a bunch of those and I started making a spray. 

And what I found is effective is somewhere between 60 and 100 drops of your essential oils (in a 2 oz bottle). Now I tend to err on the side of way too much rather than way too little because when I was creating this oil, this essential oil spray to begin with, the reason I was doing it was I had a friend coming to visit me in the Northwest Territories. 

And the thing about the North is we have a lot of mosquitoes - like not just a few, but clouds of them. And we don't just have mosquitoes, we have black flies and midges and sand flies, you name it, we've got it. 

And my friend that was coming from down south was not a big fan of bugs. And I knew that I really wanted to have something that was super effective. So I wanted to create an essential oil spray that we could use, that would work well for us. And so we wouldn't have to use DEET. 

And I could tell you stories about DEET and why I don't like using it but suffice to say, it's a poison, and I just prefer not to put it on my skin. I know it's not a problem, to where it theoretically it's been tested and it's safe, but I'd still prefer not to use it. 

So there I added my essential oils into a bottle like - oh, I got the blue bottle again, I have to quit doing that. So you get a bottle. This is a roller bottle, a brown one, or you can get just a regular essential oil bottle that you're going to repurpose doesn't really matter. 

Any kind of a sprayer though, like I said, this one is blue so it's not showing up well on our thing because my green screen thinks blue is green. So there you go. 

So anyway, you're going to top it off with one of the things either you can top it off with a mixture of witch hazel and water. Some people go all witch hazel Some people go mostly water. 

And then you're going to add a teaspoon of vegetable glycerin. And if you do that, the reason you're adding the vegetable glycerin is because oil and water doesn't really mix and your glycerin is gonna help with that. 

So, after you've added your teaspoon of vegetable glycerin, you top fill up the bottle after you've got your essential oils in, you've got your vegetable glycerin and then you're going to add you witch hazel and water mixture and put the lid on you've got a spray. 

The other way to do it though, is fractionated coconut oil. Now the reason I like fractionated coconut oil is two things - First of all, the coconut oil is going to bind to the essential oils really easily and hold it against your skin so it's going to hold the essential oils and keep them from turning volatile and then leaving you're leaving your body altogether. And it's also going to soften my skin as I'm using it. 

And I use fractionated coconut oil spray in the mornings for after my shower. So I know that it's a really nice thing to put on. But you might not like the idea of fractionated coconut if you're spraying it on clothing maybe, or something like that, if you're afraid of it being oily and greasy on the outsides of clothes, I don't worry about it too much because it's not staining. 

I've used this in the summer and you can't tell after you've sprayed where you've sprayed it except for the scent. So you know, that's up to you what you do, but that's basically how you create the essential oil spray. 

So that is pretty straightforward. So then the next thing is, what essential oils do I actually put in my spray? So the thing about the thing about essential oil sprays is I kind of, as I said, I started out with what I had on hand. 

So Cedarwood is one that I always have on hand because it's really good for my.... gee i have no brain today... it's good for sleeping. So I use it to sleep so I always have it on hand. And then Lemongrass is another one that I often have and I didn't get this out ahead of time. So of course it's in my drawer, sorry, just grabbing my essential oils. So Lemongrass is another one. 

And so I started with those because I knew that Cedarwood and Lemongrass are both really good essential oil repellents and then I wanted to also make it smell good. So I added Patchouli and Lavender, Lemon, Sandalwood, Arbor Vitae is another really good one, Geranium, Peppermint, Rosemary and Cassia. 

So I made a real witch's brew. And because I was adding so many different ones, I didn't add a ton of any given one - 10 or 15 drops of each until I had about 100 drops in my mixture, there were a few of the stronger smelling ones that I put just five drops off, because I knew that they had quite a strong aroma, and I figured that that would make it easier to do. 

So anyway, that's what I did. And I created this lovely thing. 

Hi, Holly, how are you doing? 

So I created this lovely smelling aroma. And we used it all summer. And then I had some friends that were coming up last year and did…. not last year, the year before. Anyway, some friends that came up and did a big bike trip. And they used it and they said they really liked it because it actually worked. And it worked on South American bugs as well as North American bugs because they were doing this big trip. So that's something to keep in mind. 

The trick is not to get too stuck on any one oil being the one that you absolutely need. Because you want to use what you've got in your basket already. So that's why I gave you that great long list. 

And if you go to our essential membership, I have that list along with instructions of how to make the repellent spray and the repellent lotion in the members library. So all you have to do is go there and join up. 

So I see Holly's here. Do you have any questions, Holly, or does anybody else have any questions about how you would make an essential oil spray? 

If not, then I guess the final thing is to remember there is one final piece that happens you know what, what do you do if you've been out and you've got attacked by the bugs. And I think this one is a super easy fix. Because you don't need to grab anything really super fancy. You just reach in and grab your essential oil rollers. I'm trying to find the right one. Of course, I can't find it right, this second, just a second, I'll grab one over here. 

So, what you're going to need to do is grab your essential oil Touch roller, which is the Lavender Touch, and of course it's not going to show. Yes, there we go. So there's Lavender Touch. So Lavender is perfect for if you have a problem with the bug bites bothering you, because Lavender has got some pain relieving features to it. And it's also a little bit anti inflammatory so it'll stop the swelling. And so you can just take the Lavender Touch and apply it right on the bug bite, just like that, it will stop it from itching. If you wanted to create your own roller, of course, you can take one of these empty rollers, add about 30 drops of essential oil and then top it off with fractionated coconut oil. And you end up with a Touch Roller that you've made yourself. If I was doing this myself for a homemade one, I think I would also include Peppermint as well as the Lavender, because it's another one that is a very good anti inflammatory, but it will and it has some analgesic properties, but it will also cool the itch. And I think that would make it a perfect roller. 

So I would tend to put about 20 drops of Lavender and 10 of Peppermint. And if you wanted to, you could even add a little bit of Lemon because your reaction to your bug bites is very similar to an allergy reaction. So Lemon, Lavender and Peppermint are the three that I use when I'm fighting my seasonal allergies, and so they will be perfect in a roller like this and like I said the advantage of a roller is that you're going to be able to apply it directly to the bug bite, and have.... 

oh and Holly's just asking about an after bite, an after bug bite spray. 

So, yeah, that you could totally do that as a roller or as a spray. You know, I do a spray for my summertime. That is for not just after bugs, but also for after sun, too much sun. And it has Peppermint and Lavender and a little bit of Frankincense or Copaiba depending on which way I'm feeling on the day. 

And I talked about that, again, I use the witch hazel, which I find is really good for sorry, you can't see these bottles really well with this fancy screen behind. So let me just stop the silly screen and then we can see what we're... there we go. So if I stopped the silly screen, which is really cute, but it obviously doesn't do anything for us. 

So there's the witch hazel. So the alcohol free witch hazel is something that I use quite often when I'm creating sprays because I find it really helpful for you know, making things, it nebulizes your essential oils without having that problem with oil and water not mixing and it's alcohol free so it's not going to dry my skin. 

You can also do things like adding a little bit of aloe vera into your spray if you want. Although like I said, you can just use plain glycerin if you can't get hold of Aloe Vera. I understand Aloe Vera is a little thin on the ground right now. I did share my link with my aloe vera on my website, there, you can check that out. 

But anyway, I create a spray that is a little bit of Aloe Vera, a little bit of Witch Hazel, and it's got drops of Lavender and Copaiba and Peppermint and I use that as an after-sun spray because it's great on a sunburn, but it also works as a good bug bite thing. So you know, you can basically come in from outside, spending the day outside, spray yourself down after your shower with this really nice spray that I create in the summertime and it'll soothe your skin from a variety of problems.

 And that way you end up with something that's really quite lovely smelling as well as something that is nice to use on your skin. If you are wanting it to be especially nourishing. Like I said I would reach for doTERRA sells fractionated coconut oil on our website. And I really love this because it's got no scent of its own, so it's very neutral. It absorbs really nicely into your skin. It holds the essential oils in it very well. So it binds them to you so you get the full effect of the essential oils. And it is good for a skin softener. 

So that's my presentation. Like I said, if you're interested in how to make a lotion, or how to get a specific recipe for what I use, then just go to my website and join my members group and you can find all the information there. I'm at www.BlueIceEssentials.com and I hope this was helpful for you and that you have a really great day!