Are you tired of ants invading your home? Are you trying to find a natural way to repel them? Here are 11 essential oils to repel ants!
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Essential Oils to Repel Ants
It really is annoying to walk into the kitchen and find a trail of ants headed across the countertop looking for crumbs!
Or to find a trail in the bathroom on the countertop.
Ants especially like to enter our homes during the rainy season. The rain tends to drive them, along with other creepy crawlers, in!
And no matter how clean you keep your kitchen, THEY WON’T LEAVE!
Fortunately, essential oils are great for repelling all kinds of pests! I’ve written multiple posts in the past on these topics. No matter what the topic, you truly can say, “There’s an oil for that!” 😉 .
Here are some other essential oil pest repellent posts if you need them:
13 Essential Oils to Repel Snakes
10 Essential Oils for Mosquitoes
7 Essential Oils that Repel Bugs in the Garden
Natural Way to Repel Ants
There are multiple ways that you can use your essential oils for ant repellent.
Apply Oils Directly
You can drip the oil directly onto your counter tops, around door and window frames, etc. If you have a surface that you are worried about the essential oils hurting test it in a spot that you can’t see. I’ve personally never had a problem but depending on what the surface is made out of you might want to play it safe and test.
Spray Bottle
Simply mix your ant repellent essential oils in a spray bottle with water or plant enzymes, and spritz countertops along the edges, baseboards, door frames, window frames, etc.
Remember that essential oils are not water soluble though, so they will not want to mix well with the water. This means you have to keep shaking it as you’re using it to keep the oils dispensed in the water.
I would add a total of about 10-20 drops of oil to your spray bottle.
Cotton Balls
You can also drip the oils on cotton balls or cotton rounds and place them in the corners of your kitchen counters. This might not be as effective as spraying all along the edges but it would be a good addition to the above methods. Honestly I would do all three! lol
11 Essential Oils to Repel Ants
These 11 essential oils are all excellent ant repellent oils!
You can try these oils individually or mix them together to combine the benefits of multiple oils!
The ants will hate it and it will send them packing;) Bye bye ants!
Ants hate peppermint!
If I had to pick one essential oil to use for ants, it would be this one. It is very effective.
If you'd like to purchase a bottle of good quality peppermint, you can find it here.
Basil is another oil that ants hate. Basil, like peppermint, has a very strong scent that will send the ants scurrying!
It combines well with peppermint in a spray.
You can find a good basil essential oil here.
Cinnamon leaf is an oil that I use to repel many pests. I even use it in my mosquito repellent spray.
Patchouli Authentic Essential Oil - Natures Sunshine United States
Patchouli is another oil that many bugs hate. It is said to be great for repelling ants as well!
Geranium is the next oil on our list. It is a strong smelling floral oil, that apparently ants don't like!
Clove is a very strong smelling oil. This one is not only great for ants, but will leave your home smelling like fall:)
Eucalyptus is another all purpose pest repellent. I use it in my pet flea and tick spray and it's excellent for head lice as well!
Orange is an oil that surprised me. However, orange oil has the ability to penetrate the hard, waxy exterior of the ant.
Lemongrass is also a great all purpose pest repellent; and another oil that I love for not just ants, but mosquitoes as well!
Cedarwood has long been known for being pest repellent. The wood itself is used to line drawers, dressers, trunks, etc. to keep pests out. Cedarwood essential oil is a very concentrated form of the chemical compounds that repel insects that the wood contains.
So definitely an oil you want to add to your ant repellent!
Vetiver is another strong smelling oil, kind of like patchouli. This is another pest repelling oil that the ants will not want to be around!
Strong Scent for Seasonal Ant Repellent
Since the oils on this list all have such strong scents, they will definitely be making your home smell amazing!
So why not combine your oils depending on the season?! Sure you can combine them all and make the ultimate ant bomb;) or you can mix the scents that match the season you are in.
Is it fall? Let the clove, cinnamon and orange be the stars of your ant repellent.
Is it spring or summer? Bring out the geranium, orange and lemongrass.
Feel free to also mix the oils according to your favorites. Like I said, the peppermint is probably an oil I would definitely use, but play around with the essential oil combo and find a scent that you love.
The ants will suffer no matter what, but you shouldn’t have to;)
