DIY Mosquito Repelling Candles

While we use simple floating candles for this recipe, making all types of candles at home is a fun project to tackle when you have the time. 

Ingredients Needed for DIY Mosquito Repelling Candles for outside:

• Floating Candles (2 inch)
• Glass Jars (8 oz)
• 25-30 drops Citronella Essential Oil per jar
• Fresh Lemon Slices
• Natural Food Coloring (optional)
• Fresh Lemongrass, Rosemary or Basil (optional)
• Water to Fill Jars

Directions:

Add lemons slice to your jar. I do about 3-4 slices in an 8 oz jar. If you would like, add in some fresh lemongrass, rosemary and basil. A little of each for looks and added repellent. For this recipe, it was used only lemon, which works great too.

Next, fill in with water. Fill so that there is space at the top for a floating candle. Add in the citronella oil to the top. You can add some food coloring on the top of these for aesthetics. Use natural Lemon food coloring to get that pretty yellow look.

Place the floating candle on top. Light the candles and place them around your table.

Variations for homemade mosquito repelling candles:

If you want large candles, you can use a 16 oz jar and 3 inch floating candles. You can really play around with this too. Use a large bowl and add 3 or 4 floating candles. Whatever look you are going for, you can easily create candles to go with it! 

The Science Behind These DIY Mosquito Repelling Candles.

The science is always the key to how all these DIY Projects work on Chemistry Cachet. And this is very simple science, but it works great!

Citronella Essential Oil.

The first and most important ingredient in this solution is the citronella essential oil. Citronella is one of these most common and most successful ingredient to repel insects especially mosquitoes! Citronella oil is made from distillation of an Asian grass plant. The EPA even recognizes citronella oil as a bio pesticide or biochemical which means it is a non-toxic mode of insect repellent. Since they formally recognize it, this means it has proven successful in repelling insects!

Just a quick tip: don’t use expensive citronella essential oil in this recipe. It is a waste of money, just stick to something affordable. Options to buy on Amazon are Gya Labs brand and Now Brand. These are cheaper, but also work great!

Fresh Lemon Slices.

Lemon is just an all around fantastic addition to anything, but it is especially great for insect repelleling. When you slice the lemon and place it in the jar, the scent of lemon will be all around that area. For this recipe, they are also added for aesthetic purposes. If you choose adding in fresh rosemary, basil or lemon grass, will just enhance the repelling aspect! Many people spray lemon juice on tables and outside areas to further ward of mosquitoes and flies too!

Floating Candles

The addition of floating candles is more of a physics aspect than a chemistry one, but science either way. The heat of candles will waft the smell of the oil and lemon.Wafting

Wafting is a term used in chemistry labs and it means to carry along gently as through the air.

The addition of candles in this solution makes it work further away from the area the jar is sitting. Note: this solution works great even without the candles! But the candles do help it project smell further, plus look pretty.

Natural Food Coloring.

The food coloring addition does a few things. First, it just makes everything look pretty! Second, these types of colors repel mosquitoes too. They are more likely to stay away from lighter colors like this because they don’t retain heat like dark blues, blacks, or browns. This is especially true with clothing, but also applies to other things. You can leave these just water without food coloring, and it will work just fine too! The food coloring is an optional ingredient for this reason.

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