Vy
Software Engineer in San Francisco
Software Engineer in San Francisco
I’ve traveled a fair bit of the world (I’d like to think so for how young I am :p) and one thing lots of people tend to ask me to send them is my recipe for an all-natural mosquito repellent I used while traveling.
When I was traveling through Asia (during a stretch where I traveled to Mongolia, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and India without working) I was asked multiple times about Malaria preventatives and/or treatment. I was traveling through northern summer (summer time for the northern hemisphere) which in many of the countries I was traveling in was Malaria and Dengue fever season. I had heard all these horror stories of Malaria medicine. The initial reaction your body takes is pretty traumatic: night sweats, night terrors, vomiting, fever, diarrhea… kinda sounds like Malaria doesn’t it?
Because I was traveling for an unplanned amount of time (I had that mentality of “I’ll travel for as long as I can, hey?”) I didn’t want to become hooked on Malaria pills or have to take a pill everyday for so long. I’m one of those pseudo-hippies that doesn’t opt to take pills unless absolutely necessary.
I read that Essential Oils such as Lemongrass, Citronella, Eucalyptus and Peppermint were natural insect repellents. So I bought some Lemongrass oil in a little shop in Pai, Thailand. But using the oil without diluting it caused a minor rash. I think because it was too concentrated. So here was my solution:
3oz/100ml of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
25 drops of any combination of the Essential Oils mentioned above
Not only is it more natural than the cancer-causing DEET in many aerosol cans, it works as a moisturizer too. And it smells so much nicer.
I used this remedy while I was traveling through Malaria season in high-risk areas of these countries (I even spent weeks at a time in the rainy jungles of Laos, very very high-risk for Dengue fever!). My conclusion: Hippie remedies work.
