Foraging Series - Wildcrafting Natural Insect Repellent

The idea came to me Tuesday. I was up at Somewhere In The Woods, USA employing a few leaves to ward off a mosquito attack. So I acted on the idea yesterday and spent some time out for a woods walk.

Part of the walk was for the sheer pleasure of being out there. Seeing that Fox Squirrel was a treat. It was hanging around near a few remaining Long Leaf Pines on the family property.

Part of the walk was a resource gathering mission. I needed some appropriately sized saplings to construct a bucksaw. I also needed to procure some leaves for a little stovetop project.

The idea?

I’ve been using fresh picked Wax Myrtle and Beautyberry leaves to keep the mosquitoes at bay for years. It doesn’t take a lot of leaves. A few crumpled leaves rubbed on exposed skin does wonders where mosquitoes are concerned. So why not experiment with infusing the mosquito repellent elements in oil?

Experiment.

That’s the operative word.

How much of what and how long to simmer it on a low heat?

The gallon cast iron pot was over half full of Beautyberry leaves that I had torn to pieces. It wasn’t a loose and fluffy half. It was more of a dense and packed half. The Wax Myrtle leaves brought it to around three quarters. I simply stripped them from the branches into the pot.

I used a pint of extra virgin olive oil.

Once the oil was hotter than it needed to be I cut the heat back to just enough to keep a slight simmer going and kept it stirred with an oak stick that I cut for the stirring purpose. I didn’t want to use any of our “normal” utensils during the course of the experiment. Wax Myrtle leaves can be used as seasoning like Bay leaves. I’ve read several sources that say Beautyberry berries are edible when ripe but never anything about the leaves being edible. So a little caution was necessary with the cooking utensils.

How long?

Less than an hour. The batch simmered on a low heat for around forty-five minutes.

I poured the works through a colander into a stainless bowl. (Kitchen stuff but I think it will wash.) Once the oil that would drain on its own had drained, I wrapped the leaves in a cloth and squeezed the heck out of it. Hand squeezing netted an additional one half cup of infused oil. The end result amounted to three quarters of that pint returned to the bottle.

Using the old cast iron added some rust to the mix. I placed a piece of cotton towel in the funnel and strained it good. That got the worst of it and the rust did not appear to cause any brown discoloration in the finished product. The finished product took on a lot of the green leaf color.

There were two things I was interested in knowing.

First … would this oil infused with Beautyberry and Wax Myrtle repel the nasty biting boogers.

Second … would I experience any dermatological problems by applying this wildcrafted concoction to my skin.

The second question first.

The only places that I felt anything was on the top of my head and the tops of my feet … skin that is more often than not either covered with a hat or stuffed in socks and footgear. The backs of my hands, face, and ears felt nothing strange. I could tell that something was on my head and the tops of my feet.

Yes.

I know.

There’s a lot of cleared runway up there for mosquitoes to use as a landing strip.

What I felt was far less uncomfortable than the sensation caused me by the Eucalyptus that is the main ingredient of Repel. There is, in fact, hardly any smell to the Beautyberry – Wax Myrtle mixture. No loud fragrance like that imparted by concoctions created by mosquito repelling natural essential oils. The lack of fragrance is a really good thing when considering its application during archery season.

Three hours after application there was no obvious dermatological reaction anywhere it was applied.

Now for how effective.

I sat down in the bottom on a chair for about twenty minutes. The only place a mosquito would land was on skin that did not have the leaf-dope applied to it. I walked down into the thick and stood there. In less than a minute the boogers were swarming me. I tried to get a picture of them landing on my pants and swarming around my feet but I don’t think they show up in the picture.

Mosquitoes simply would not land where the leaf-dope was applied.

I need to do a little more experimenting with this leaf dope.

I’m curious to know the duration of its effectiveness. I’m also curious to know its effectiveness against ticks. The duration thing will be pretty easy to determine. The part about repelling ticks? I’ll be able to determine this over time. So, for the course of this summer and through hunting season, this wildcrafted natural repellent will be the only insect repellent I use.