Homemade Insect Repellents

Hello everyone, there's a bee here on the Herb Robert. I'm just waiting till it's gone. There she goes. So thank you so much for all the wonderful comments from last week and actually I put a link below the film in the midweek afterwards. It was something that I came across which was so relevant and I'll put it again in this week's box underneath this film. But today I've had so many requests about how do we get rid of midges and mosquitoes, how can we repel them, how can we keep our pets clear of fleas and ticks and things. So I'm going to go through an array of herbs and methods we can apply to make summertime more pleasant and less troublesome with all these biting insects and whatever we're doing for ourselves we can apply to our cats and dogs as well. So before I begin I'm just going to collect some of this Herb Robert and then I thought before I begin actually talking about the repellent let's just look at who these midges and mosquitoes are, what is their purpose, what are they doing here, how do they live and why are they so troublesome to us. Oh the fragrance is that valerian. So midges and mosquitoes they're pretty much the same thing only one is really teeny tiny about one or two millimetres and the other one is obviously more visible. But to all intents and purposes it's the same thing and they create the same problems and what they do is they are a very important part of the ecosystem because they provide food for many creatures from fish to dragonflies to reptiles to bats to birds. So they're important in that respect because they can feed so many other beings that are in the web of the ecosystem but unfortunately for us the females like to take a blood meal when they've mated and they're ready to lay their eggs. They need a blood meal to ensure the efficacy I suppose the success of those eggs hatching into new midges or mosquitoes and so after they've mated they will find some prey to feed on and some types of midge and mosquitoes have a particular type of prey and others might not be so fussy but there are certainly those that like to feed on humans. So let's just think about first of all instead of hating them just appreciate that they do have a role to play in the environment and it's just unfortunate that we are often the prey but what can we do about it? So I thought instead of just talking about you know how we can make a repellent let's talk about why we become so attractive to them. So first of all it's the co2 that we breathe out the carbon dioxide that we breathe out and obviously we have to breathe out we can't help that but there are ways again of alleviating the attraction or minimalizing the attraction to these insects. So for example be mindful that they tend to be flying around between during the early morning and early evening into late evening so we can usually have the daytime quite free but when we produce our co2 the more work we're doing or the heavier we are or the more active we are the more co2 we're going to be breathing out. So you know minimize your movements at dawn and dusk go gently go smoothly and you're less likely to be breathing hard so if you're jogging first thing in the morning you're going to attract more of them and we were on the bog one evening a couple of years ago and working hard you know getting the turf into the tractor and we had to give up because we were surrounded by a huge cloud of midges and that's another thing they like to live in damp soil they live in dung and they will live on kind of rotting vegetation as well so maybe and of course water which is where they lay their eggs so if you have stagnant water around get rid of it you can't do anything about your soil but you can minimize any rotting vegetation by removing it from near to the house. Another thing you can do is don't be like me wearing dark colors wear light colors or pastels because they're very attracted to bright colors or dark colors so reds and oranges and bright green those kind of colors try to avoid them and blacks of course and just wear whites or pastel colors. So apart from breathing out co2 we also sweat it out so again the same thing don't be doing too much physical exercise or work and getting sweaty when you're out if you're out during those times when the midges and the mosquitoes are more likely to be around early evening and early morning. You might want to check your blood group as well because if you're type o you're much more attractive to these little biting insects so if you're type o all you can do really is try to confuse them and you can take make sure you have lots of b vitamins in your blood so it might be a good idea to supplement with a good b complex because that will possibly confuse them or just make your blood less attractive even if you are a type o blood group person. And then as I'm talking about your sweat also you want to be clean be clean have good personal hygiene because there's other things in your sweat as well there might be the the smell of the food you've been eating so if you eat a clean wholesome diet your smell is not going to be as attractive. If you live on junk food and you know soft drinks and things you're going to be a magnet so think about what you're eating because you'll be sweating it out you'll be breathing it out and good personal body hygiene which I'm sure you all have perfect good hygiene. And it's a shame to say that women are more attractive to these insects for a couple of reasons one is that if you are pregnant you are heavier and you are going to be breathing more heavily and so you're going to be breathing out more carbon dioxide than somebody else. If you are a menopausal woman with hot flushes again that heat that body temperature is going to attract them as well so keep all these points in mind you can you can you know adjust your lifestyle to make you less attractive or at least to not be out when they're all out and about flying. I'm just out gathering a few herbs because I'm now going to tell you how you can actually make a repellent if after having done everything else you're still being attacked by these nuisance insects. Okay here we are so that's I'm going to show you now how to make a really effective insect repellent. So as ever herbs to the rescue I've just got some rosemary, this a couple of tansy leaves, wormwood, this is southern wood which is an artemisia as well as is wormwood. I've got a little bit of lavender which is just about to bud into flower and I've got some herb robert also known as thinking bob. So what you could do with any of these herbs is you could simply crush them up and rub them over your skin and they will make an unpleasant odor. It's not too bad so you're not going to be going around actually smelling horrible but you will smell bad to the biting insects and of course garlic is one of the best protectors and it's one of the best herbs to use to repel bloodsuckers. We all know that from our vampire movies that we've seen and vampire stories. So what I'm going to do I've got garlic already in here chopped up and I'm just going to crush it up. Okay so I'm going to cut up into small pieces all of these herbs because always we cut things small for a greater surface area. All of these plants that I'm using and everything will be written in the box below all a list of the herbs and their properties and all of these herbs can be used for your pets as well and there's many ways you can use them apart from this one way so I'll put some of the suggestions in the box as well and what I would do as well is for your pet bed and for your drawers and your linen closets to get rid of any moths that might be hanging around this will work for those as well. So they're lovely to put into you know linen bags and lavender bags you could put more lavender in. There are other herbs as well that I, marsh woundwort for example is a wonderful repellent but it's not actually out here yet so I'd have to get that later in the year. I'm just taking off these rosemary leaves and I'm going to cut those in as well and whenever you're making something set an intention so I'm setting an intention that this is going to be a hugely effective biting insect repellent and I'm just going to beat this to a pulse now with the pestle. Well that's all in the jar I'm just going to chop it off with a vodka so it's kind of making a tincture and I'm going to let that sit for a couple of weeks and that will be I'll give that to my brother for when he's working on the bog because really with all that garlic you don't want to put it on if you're going for a barbecue or a night out sitting outside eating somewhere. Well I mean I wouldn't care less but some people might not want it I'll just put a little bit more in and then that will be strained off and put into a little spray bottle like this and away you go sprayed around your head and your face and any exposed skin and it will protect you from those biting insects as much as it possibly can. But if you don't want to wait that long you can make an insect repellent with oh jazz must have heard somebody at the gate with essential oils and to do that you want to put in a carrier oil so I'm using jojoba which is the oil which is most similar to the sebum in our skin or rather on the skin so I've got a half a bottle of that now which oils have I got here I've got lavender I've got eucalyptus I've got peppermint I've got lemongrass citronella wild rosemary and patchouli so I wouldn't use all of those oils in one go because instead of smelling like beautiful essential oils we're going to make a horrible unpleasant you know mismatch of scent so I'm just going to put in a couple but they are ones you could use in any combination just I wouldn't use them all at once so I'm going to put in some citronella I'm actually going to put about 20 drops of this so I've counted 20 so there's probably about 30 drops in I really don't like citronella so I'm going to put in some rosemary I'm just going to put 10 drops in of course I'm saying 10 drops here 10 drops there I can't actually control how many drops you're dropping so it might be 12 it might be 9 so just you know use your own judgment I'm going to put in some lavender I'm just going to finish off with patchouli okay I'm going to put in a tiny little cap full of vodka just to make it less of a dense might actually put a bit more in just to make it so the oil is too dense to be coming through the sprayer you can use vodka or you could use witch hazel and I'm going to put this in so I've given it a good shake okay at the top of and I'll just give it a little try hmm well that smells quite fresh and green yeah I could wear that during the day so you're going to smell quite nice and you're going to repel the biting insects but of course there's the other three that I didn't put in you could arrange them in any combination that you like you could put them all in I just don't think it's necessary to put them all in oh that's nice so and then final thing is a barrier because um those midges are so tiny they can get through anything if you've got a hole you know where you fasten your sleeve for example and there's normally a little gap they can get in there you can get down your socks they can get down the neck of whatever you're wearing so you may want to invest in one of these it's a little hood you put over your head and then you could tuck your coat up around it if you're out hiking and it stops the because they do leave big um sore itchy lumps so now I think I said that all the herbs I've used you could put into little little cotton bags or muslin bags they can go into your pet beds as well and also I was talking about hygiene so you know wash your pet bedding regularly shake it out in sun and um that's the best way to really repel these things and keep on top of them so I hope you found that helpful all the information is in the box below the types of plants that I was using and the method which is all very simple anyway so I'm going to go now and do a little bit more herb harvesting and I hope you have a wonderful week I'll see you next Sunday. I hope you enjoyed today's film if you did subscribe and hit the bell for notifications and have a look at the website www.darnooseirishherbgarden.com for more information about us and about the herbal medicine courses I offer and the Wise Woman Way training and if you go to the shop you can find the books the weed handbooks and other herbal goodies and remember we put a new film out every Sunday so looking forward to seeing you next week.