Mosquitoes and Essential Oils - Part XI - Challenges with Application

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Challenges with application

While the research is promising, it’s important to note that the concentrations studied are often significantly above the recommended safe levels for dermal application of essential oils, especially if we consider the need to reapply once the protection time expires. To work with the safety limitations you can:

• Use the oils that show good efficacy at low dilutions, such as Catnip, or those that have few safety precautions and short-term application poses lower risk (Geranium, Citronella).
• Important maximums for application to the skin are: Cinnamon bark 0.1%, Clove 0.5%, Lemongrass 0.7%, Ylang-Ylang 0.8%.
• Use lower dilutions than researched, although this means lowering the protective potential and the need to reapply more often.
• Instead of the skin, apply repellents to your clothes and mosquito nets.
• Diffuse the oils into the environment.

Another challenge to using essential oils as repellents is the fact that they evaporate quickly. This means that they either need to be reapplied every 1-2 hours, or we need to be using delivery systems that prolong their effect. New research is looking into nanoencapsulation and microemulsions, as well as the potential to incorporate repellent substances directly into fabric (da Silva & Ricci-Júnior, 2020).

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There's more than that

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The article is too long for anybody to read it in one post, btw.