As summer approaches, so do the ticks…

This “perfume” is actually a super effective all natural tick repellant by another name.

If you spend any amount of time on Long Island, or CT, or basically any place in the Northeast, you know all about ticks. You may even be paralyzed with fright, refusing to go outside or even approach a blade of grass for fear of becoming yet another victim of the dreaded Lyme disease.

Lyme is quite serious, and every precaution should be made to avoid it. But that does not mean we need to stay indoors, or to spray our backyards to death with horrible poisons that are killing the ticks, sure, but also doing who knows what else.

The best thing to do is to keep vigilant, use natural repellants, wear shoes outside and then check for the little buggers at the end of the day.

Last year we discovered the above pictured perfume spray-cum-bug repellant from Intelligent Nutrients and I must say, we have not gotten a tick since we started using it. And by we, I mean my daughter and me. My husband, on the other hand, seems to love ignoring my research and advice, can’t be bothered to use the spray, and has found a whole assortment of the little buggers on him at various points both last summer and this one.

Rose geranium oil is the most oft cited essential oil for fighting off ticks. It’s become my new best friend.

I finally put my foot down, as I was the one who had to take the little critters, trapped in a zip lock bag, up to our doctor for testing (the Lyme test done on the actual tick is much more accurate than the human version.) After reading this post about a woman and her dog using (and swearing by) rose geranium oil, I ordered some up and presented it to Josh this past weekend. Happy early Father’s Day, dear!

So far so good. Plus my husband now smells like a rose bush with a hint of citrus thrown in for good measure.

MDJunction has some more information on using essential oils to kill ticks, including herbs like eucalyptus, pot marjoram and tansy. They also validate the popularity of rose geranium oil for this same purpose. I haven’t spread my wings any further than the two above mentioned potions (trying to keep my hoarding instincts at bay here…) but here’s an interesting post on making your own all-natural bug sprays that is well worth checking out. And if anybody out there has any other tips for keeping the ticks (and mosquitoes, and flies, and gnats…) away this summer, I’m all ears.

Because as far as I am concerned, the only good tick is a dead tick. That was never on me to begin with.