Lavender oil: Top 3 ways to use it at home
Lavender oil can be used at home in three different ways, to repel mosquitoes, moths and with burns.
While looking for natural ways to make mosquito and moth repellents I came across lavender essential oil*. Lavender essential oil is an oil I always have at home. So I looked it up how I could best use it to combat mosquitoes and I found a recepe to mix it. I mixed it with jojoba oil and gave it a try by applying it on my skin before going to bed. The mixture was 30 mls of jojoba oil with 30 drops of lavender oil. I haven’t had much trouble with mosquito bites ever since but I have to admit I am not a mosquito magnet and I live in the Netherlands so I don’t have to use DEET as protection against diseases.
Looking for a natural and economic way to repel moth I read lavender is a good oil to use as well. I put a few drops of lavender oil onto cotton pads and placed them in the closet. It seems like it is doing its job. Citronella is supposed to do the trick as well but I have found its scent too aggressive in the cupboard.
When in college I often burned my hands while cooking and I used to have burning marks on my wrist which took a long time to heal. I burned my wrist a short while ago and treated it with neat lavender oil after cooling it under the tap with cold water. The burn healed very quickly within a few days. After the first day I continued to treat the burn with the lavender and jojoba oil mixture I mentioned above and it only took a few days to heal completely without leaving a scar. The burn was not severe and it was not an open wound. Otherwise I would not have used lavender oil. But this way of using lavender essential oil was very successful.
Conclusion: Using lavender oil (lavender officinalis) to repel mosquitoes in a mixture with jojoba oil, applying them on cotton pads to put into a cupboard and using neat lavender oil for burns to me has been quite succesfull and I intend to continue using it.
Do you like to use natural remedies at home? If so, which one is your favorite?
*Lavender essential oil: if buying lavender essential oil look for lavendula officinalis if used for burns.
Sources: Valerie Ann Worwood The Fragrant Pharmacy, Susanne Fischer-Rizzi The Complete Aromatherapy Handbook: Essential Oils for Radiant Health and Jennifer Peace Rhind Fragrance and Wellbeing
Photograph 1 made by me, photograph 2 is free stock