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Essential oil flea/tick recipe?

5K views 19 replies 7 participants last post by  Not_here 
#1 ·
We'll be bringing home our first boxer puppy in two weeks. I'm trying to prepare as much as possible in advance. The pup will be on Revolution flea/tick as that's what the breeder starts all her pups on. My plan is to never use it again...I have raw organic apple cider vinegar with the mother already. My question is if I do a 50/50 ACV-water mix (let's say 5-6 ounces of each), how many drops of essential oils can I add to the mix to help repel fleas/ticks as well as make it smell better? What kinds work best? Lavender, lemongrass, cedarwood?
 
#6 ·
I have a small reptile pet sized squirt bottle, it maybe holds 8 to 10 oz total. I use apple cider vinegar, water and then add about ten drops each of lavendar, cedarwood, lemongrass and eucalyptus. Geranium, peppermint, and rosemary are supposed to work well too. This is the only preventative we have used on our small maltese for the past two years and have not had any problems. we will be using the same mix on our boxer puppy when she arrives this summer.
 
#8 ·
So I'm trying some different mixtures...first tried 6oz ACV/6oz water with 7 drops of lavender and 4 peppermint, the ACV smell was so powerful. Is that just the way it's going to be no matter what?

2nd try I used 5oz ACV/ 7oz water with 5 drops of each oil. I still don't smell much of anything besides the ACV. I know the most important thing is to deter ticks/fleas, but I don't know that I can spray this stuff on my dog every day haha. Any advice? Btw I have lemongrass and cedarwood ordered and on the way...
 
#10 ·
Thanks for the help so far. I've been messing around with different ratios. I think I just came up with one I like, I watered it down a bit with roughly 10oz water and 5oz Apple cider vinegar, I then added 5 drops of peppermint and lemongrass, 3 drops of lavender and 1 drop of cedarwood. The peppermint and lemongrass is the dominant smell in this mix. Hopefully it's effective enough at repelling fleas and ticks. 14 drops total in about 15 oz of water/ACV isn't too much is it?
 
#12 ·
Oh wow, and how many ounces is your bottle? Mine is about 16 ounces. I have read in a bunch of places, this site included, to be careful not to go overboard with the oils because of the dogs sensitive noses. A lot of people seem to recommend a 1-2% dilution percentage. I wouldn't begin to know how to figure a percentage dilution when talking about drops....

Thanks for your help. I believe lemongrass and lavender are supposed to be good to deter ticks as well, right?
 
#13 ·
I did some math, an ounce is approximately 600 drops, multiply by 16oz in my case....to get roughly 9500 total drops of liquid in my particular spray bottle. So with a 1% dilution I should be able to safely put 95 drops of essential oils into 16 ounces. So my formula which had about 14 drops is probably waaaay under powered and ineffective. I'll have to go back and bump everything up to at least in the 12-20 drops per oil range.
 
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