Citronella essential oil is fantastic for the outdoors

by Jason Woodward
(San Bernadino CA USA)

I had often heard that Citronella was great for getting rid of insects but had never actually experienced it. My problem was that behind my house there is a pool of stagnant water. The property behind my house belongs to the city and there is a small row of trees that grow there that I believe the city waters. I don't have a definitive answer as to why there is small pool of water but there is, maybe 10 foot by 10 foot that I think is there because it either has a drainage problem or there may be a broken sprinkler.

I never could see water coming out of any of them, but for all I know it was a broken line that was just slowly leaking. Nevertheless, there was a small pond of stagnant water and with that came a whole bunch of mosquitoes.

The year I was getting married, we held all the rehearsals at my house in my backyard. People were getting bit by the mosquitoes and my brother had a reaction where the side of his face really swelled. We had Citronella candles but only a few and they definitely did not remove all the mosquitoes from the backyard, only in the area that the candles were concentrated in. Unfortunately for us, other guest got bit and it was a bad experience.

After seeing what happened with my brother's face and not wanting my kids to get bit I tried to think of a plan to get rid of the mosquitoes permanently. I ended up doing a bit more research and devised a plan. I order Citronella pure essential oil and a few days later when I received it I put them in spritzer bottles and hopped the fence. I went to the stagnant pond water and I sprayed them all around the base of the pond, some of it in the pond and mostly around all the trees on the leaves and branches. Very happy with myself, I waited a day to see the results.

Nothing happened. The mosquitoes were still coming in full force. It didn't seem to work. So instead of spraying it all over trees and mud my wife and I sprayed a very light mist on ourselves. My wife complained about the scent, but I convinced her it was worth it. After spraying it on ourselves lightly, the mosquitoes left us alone. The first time we gave ourselves more spray than necessary we later found out.

Once we discovered it worked well we experimented with lighter and lighter applications. It turns out that we only had to give ourselves a quick and light one pump mist for the front side and backside and the mosquitoes were not interested in us.

So I never figured out how to get rid of them permanently, but I found an all natural and safe way to keep them off us and the kids and after not too long, the smell is gone even without showering which is odd because perfumes and colognes seem to last much longer. I recommend it as a quick and easy way to keep from getting bit.