Natural Bug Spray Has Effective Essential Oils October 31 2016

The latest product from Natural Citizen is a 100% DEET-free bug spray. This natural bug spray with essential oils will help you deter annoying pests without damaging the environment. 

Natural Bug Spray with Essential Oils 

Most of the naturally occurring ingredients come directly from plants and only require a slight amount of mechanical processing to extract their goodness. 

The National Institute of Health defined natural products as those that come from anything alive at some point: plants, animals, fungi, and even bacteria. All of the extracts must come from living organisms that grow and develop on their own in nature. This includes things like vitamins and minerals as well as probiotics, which are actually beneficial bacteria.

natural bug spray 

How is Natural Bug Spray with Essential Oils Defined? 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also has guidelines about what can be called a natural product on the bottle, jar, box, or another wrapping. Most of their rules have to do with food. While completely natural food would require you to go to the plant and pick it yourself, making sure that no fertilizers or pesticides ever came anywhere near it, the FDA's rules are not that strict. They require food that is labeled as natural to have no synthetic additives, preservatives, colors, or flavors. 

Although our natural bug spray made with essential oils is certainly not a food product, we decided to label it as natural based on the FDA's guidelines. We add no color, artificial preservatives, and certainly no flavorings (Yuck!) to the bug spray. 

Ingredients of the Natural Bug Spray 

(As of publishing, ingredients may change, consult your bottle)

  • Soybean oil. The oil is mechanically extruded from natural soybeans.
  • Essential oils. These come directly from plants and are extracted by pressing, steaming or using a carbon dioxide extraction method on them.
  • Xanthan gum, which comes from corn or other vegetables
  • Citric acid, which comes from citrus fruits like lemon and orange.
  • Vanillin*

*Quick Information About Vanillin 

You find vanillin mostly in vanilla flavoring that is used for baking, and it is usually completely synthetic. If you were to get real vanilla beans and extract the flavor compounds from it, a bottle of vanilla extract would have such a high price no one will be able to make cookies. Because growing vanilla is very limited geographically, farming more is not an environmentally sound option. Instead of genuine vanilla, we use a vanillin substitute derived from another plant. This compound is much less expensive, kinder ecologically speaking, and just as effective in our Deet-free bug spray with essential oils.