All Terrain Herbal Armor: Green, Eco-Friendly Insect Repellents
Spring Break is right around the corner, and with it our annual foray into the wilderness—a cabin, with a bathroom, shower and beds. Now that might not seem too rugged to you intrepid tenters, but with three kids, bottles and diapers to haul, it’s about as close to roughing it as we’re going to get.
But then there are the bugs, which seem to have it in for the cabin camper, being attracted, perhaps, to our relative cleanliness in contrast to those sponge bathing in the river down the road. In the interest of full disclosure, let us be very honest about our true, visceral, woefully-ineffectual hatred of mosquitoes. We seem to possess the kind of blood that these bugs find in a crowd. One of us once backpacked in to the Sierras for a four-night stint designed to impress her soon-to-be husband, only to turn around the next morning after spending the night encased in mosquito netting while hundreds of them gathered around her face, battling to get in. (She did, surprisingly, still get married.)
And so anything that promises to distract, detract or decimate these tiny vampires perks our ears up something fierce. Except DEET. There’s something really scary about spraying those kind of chemicals around your person. Especially when the studies have linked them to neurological problems, especially in children, according to a New York Times article about that state’s attempts to have the chemical banned.
Enter a whole host of alternative bug repellents, most containing citronella oil, which we happen to love as it reminds us of a time when we could camp without diapers. Our all-time fave is Herbal Armor Insect Repellant Spray, which repels insects with essential oils of peppermint, cedar, lemongrass and geranium, and smells much like a essential oil perfume blend we used to whip up in college. Hopefully the skeeters won’t find it half as attractive as the weird dorm rat who lived down the hall.
