Mosquitoes!

Oh how I hate these little buggers. Living in CO I forgot how annoying they are. Normally we have very few of these pests. I don't know what the difference is this year but they are all over the place. Working outside is a buzzing pain. There are swarms of them. Years ago my parents brought me this natural bug spray back from Hawaii.

Hawaii Mosquito Spray

It works pretty well. Only negative is that it wears off pretty quickly and I don't want to go through the whole bottle in a couple days. So I decided to make my own so I won't worry about running out.

First step was to look at the ingredients and do a little research online.

Ingredients

I can't do the Noni (amazing stuff, look into it), but the rest seemed doable. After my research and talking with a friend that makes her own I decided on the following ingredients:

Water

Witch hazel

Lemongrass
Eucalyptus

Lavender

These are pretty typical. What I did differently was add peppermint to also deter yellow jackets which are also in high numbers this year.

I put a 50/50 mix of water and witch hazel in each bottle then added varying amounts of each oil. More lemongrass and lavender, less eucalyptus and peppermint. That can be adjusted to individual preferences.

Here is the final product. I made 3 bottle so each person can have one on them when working outside or camping. Just shake and spray. 

Rocky thinks he might need some too