Homemade insect repellant

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MNwr786

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This is for those who like making their own essential oil based insect repellents. I am here to tell you that you are likely missing an important step the industry doesn't want you to know!!!

Lemon Eucalyptus essential oil is NOT the same oil being used in things like OFF! brand deet-free lemon eucalyptus spray. There is a difference between the natural product and what is being put in the bottle (not to mention the countless inferior oils being sold that aren't pure, but that's not what this discussion is about). Don't worry, hidden below is a solution that will make your half hour spray work for several hours!

Lemon Eucalyptus oil (not to be confused with the target substance "oil of lemon eucalyptus" aka PMD) contains 70-90% citronellal. The active ingredient, p-methane 3,8-diol (PMD) is only present in lemon eucalyptus essential oil at about 2% by weight. Compared to what the bottle of OFF contains, which is 65% PMD, you can see there is a big difference between what they sell and what you can buy as essential oil. Time for more chemistry! We need to perform a cyclization reaction, but don't worry, you do not need a degree to do it.

What you need to do is convert the citronellal that is in your oil to PMD by heating it with an acid catalyst. More specifically, you need to heat roughly 50% by volume oil with 50% by volume of a 7% citric acid solution at 50°C for 15 hours with constant stirring (you're gonna need a heated stir plate and magnetic stir bar for that). This process converts about 82% of the citronellal to PMD with a small portion becoming various terpenes (which have proven to aid in the repellent properties) and when the math from start to finish is considered, you end up with the same percentage PMD as the commercial product. Now you need to let it settle and remove the water layer, be patient, it will take a while. At this point, you could dry the oil with anhydrous sodium or magnesium sulfate, but something tells me the next step you do has water anyway, so don't bother.

This is then diluted to a 20-30% concentration with the strongest vodka you can get (or oils meant for skin). You can then add a few drops of other essential oils to make it truly yours! For that, I would recommend the other oils that actually work as insect repellents like lavender and rose geranium. And although there is debate on its effectiveness, I like to add a little cedarwood oil as well. The low volatility of PMD compared to other oils that evaporate off within an hour is the reason for it's long-term effectiveness. Now you know the secret!

EDIT: and don't toss that water/citric acid layer, it still contains oil and it can be reused as a catalyst in the next run!!!
 
Attached is the article I found on the process. I am trying it now with 8 ounces of oil (half the can). Two more hours to go on the heating/mixing.
LE-PMD.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Green synthesis of para-Menthane-3,8-diol from Eucalyptus citriodora.pdf
    446.9 KB · Views: 2
Update: This stuff is by far the best mosquito repellent I've ever used. It's nothing like the starting oil at all. The PMD is a bit like menthol in that it has a slight cooling effect, smells way different (and better) than the citronellal in the essential oil, and works for a much longer time. I mowed the entire yard without being touched by a single mosquito!
 
If someone would make a Buffalo Gnat repellent that worked they'd be rich over night.
The stuff I made seems to work for deer flies, but they haven't came out in numbers here yet so the jury is still out on whether the stuff I made works for flies or not.

Back to the buffalo flies...
I think black pepper might work (as black pepper is used to keep flies off ham as it cures), but to avoid sneezing, perhaps making an extract using alcohol ~ pour a can (or several) of fine ground black pepper in a bottle of everclear, wait a week, filter off solids.
Edit: it might be an eye irritant though, but what repellent isn't lol

Interestingly, a repellent known to work for buffalo flies, Picaridin (aka Icaridin), is a member of the piperidine family, just like black pepper :)

An alternative you might try is a repellent named IR3535.

As a 4th option, Vicks vaporub might work too, but only until the camphor evaporates (20 minutes)
 
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I remember being tortured by deer flies at Boy Scout camp.
I have weird body system. After 20, I have developed some sort immunity to mosquito and black fly bites.
Used to be up in the mountains, show people the bug biting me. Show there was no reaction to their bite the next day. I would laugh they died of alcohol poisoning.
Maybe my blood is valuable for research. For any feds looking, it’s $5000 a pint.
 
The stuff I made seems to work for deer flies, but they haven't came out in numbers here yet so the jury is still out on whether the stuff I made works for flies or not.

Back to the buffalo flies...
I think black pepper might work (as black pepper is used to keep flies off ham as it cures), but to avoid sneezing, perhaps making an extract using alcohol ~ pour a can (or several) of fine ground black pepper in a bottle of everclear, wait a week, filter off solids.
Edit: it might be an eye irritant though, but what repellent isn't lol

Interestingly, a repellent known to work for buffalo flies, Picaridin (aka Icaridin), is a member of the piperidine family, just like black pepper :)

An alternative you might try is a repellent named IR3535.

As a 4th option, Vicks vaporub might work too, but only until the camphor evaporates (20 minutes)

Looked up Deer Flies and they look nothing like the Gnats I'm talking about. Although this could be due to them being recently hatched.
Camphor or Campho phenique slows them down for a few minutes.
These are about the size of a sharpened pencil tip and they're gray in color.
They leave a knot the size of half a golf ball that's there for days.
They feed on pollen and are bad in the spring,they disappear when the temps get into the 90's.
When they're really bad your only defense is a head net over a hat.
 
We use listerine mouthwash for keeping the skeeters away.
The active ingredients in Listerine only contains maybe 1% eucalyptol and mere traces of linalool (the primary constituent of lavender oil, but from trace amounts in thyme used in listerine) and only works for an extremely short amount of time (if at all for some people) due to the evaporation rate. Thats what makes PMD work for so long, its slow evaporation rate. It stays on your skin. Most home remedies are simply junk. If you want a store-bought solution that works for more than a half an hour, look for Repel Lemon Eucalyptus based repellent (which, as mentioned above, contains PMD and is not simply "essential oil").
 

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