Make Natural Insect Repellent with Essential Oils [Outdoors]

If you live in a climate without many summer pests, well, lucky you. For the rest of us, these essential oil repellents will make patio life less insect-filled. Photo by mccun934.

How-to-guide repository wikiHow explains the crafting of simple pest-banishing pots for your home and garden. You take a small rag or sponge, soak it with a diluted concentration of essential oils, then leave it in a small container like a glass jar. When you want to drive away mosquitoes, horse flies, and other annoying summer pests, you simply open the jar and place it near you to keep them away.

If you don't have any small jars on hand, this is also a great project for the versatile Altoids tin. For details on the project, including which oils to use—mosquitoes hate peppermint apparently—check out the guide at the link below. If you find that a dose of peppermint isn't driving away the mosquitoes as quickly as you'd like, lure them away from you with a DIY mosquito trap.

How to Make Natural Outdoor Fly Repellent with Essential Oils