DIY ANTI MOTH: 8 NATURAL AND ECOLOGICAL IDEAS

Often we don’t think that we can easily create in house DIY anti-moth. The anti moth features on the market may be cheap and ecological, but they almost always have nothing natural and we risk to put toxic substances in our closet, such as naphthalene. In this article I propose to you some solutions that you can reproduce almost at no cost.

8 NATURAL AND ECOLOGICAL DIY ANTI MOTH

1. LAUREL AND CINNAMON
2. CITRUS ZEST AND CLOVE
3. LAVENDER
4. ROSEMARY, MINT AND STAR ANISE
5. CINNAMON, PEPPERCORN AND FENNEL SEEDS
6. ESSENTIAL OILS
7. PERFUMED BAR SOAPS AND  ALEPPO SOAP
8. TIGER BALM

Now let’s see in detail these eight completely natural ideas:

1. LAUREAL AND CINNAMON

This is an excellent DIY anti-month, very easy to do. I’m using laureal and cinnamon and I explain how. I take some laureal leafs that i have collected and dried personally. You can find this plant in farmland and use it for cooking, but also for our purpose. So, I take some dried laureal leafs and I add a stick of cinnamon in the middle. Then I close it with a slice of twine. I prepare several packs so I put them in more places in the wardrobe. The perfuming isn’t going to be intens, but it doesn’t matter since it’s not our nose that will pick them up. They will be the moths that won’t appreciate the smell and will hotfoot.

2. CITRUS ZEST AND CLOVES

If we want a more fruity anti-moth, we can use the zest of an citrus fruit (orange, lemon, grapefruit…are all fine) in which we put some cloves. We can leave the citrus zest in the wardrobe for some months, since it emits the aroma even when it’s dried. It’s possibile to create mini bags made of breathable fabric. In the inside you can put a lot of pieces of citrus with an handful of cloves. In this way the idea is nicer and you get the same result.

3. LAVENDER ANTI-MOTH

Just outside our city it’s possibile to find large lavender hedges. When the blooming it’s done we can go directly to harvest it. Drying flowers is a good natural alternative for many uses, including the creation of an eco-friendly DIY anti moth. We shell the flowers that we harvested and conserve them in a glass can, so that you can get them when you need.

4. ROSEMARY, MINT AND STAR ANISE

Another effective combinantion is the one of chooped rosemary sprigs with some mint leaves and pieces of star anise. You can also add pieces of cinnamon and some clove, according to what you like the most. You can easily combine herbs and spices depending on what you have at your disposal. Sometimes you don’t even need to go shopping to create a good DIY anti-moth. For example, we all have spicy infusion at home. If you have something oriental and very aromatic, just open a few of envelopes and use them as they are. Just open your sideboard et voilà!

5. CINNAMON, PEPPERCORN AND FENNEL SEEDS

This is another combination which is very scented and unique and you can use it to go away the moths. You put together these ingredients that can be stored even in small cardboard with or without the lid. If the cardboard has the lid you can pierce it to let out the smell. You can put the little cardboard in the wardrome and drwaers and reuse them to the bitter end.

6. ESSENTIAL OILS

Another chance to create a good DIY anti-moth is to use essential oils. In this case it would be possible to use a few oil drops on a canvas sack, in which we insert a cotton pad (the one that you use to remove your make is fine). Another option is to put the oil on chalks, which easily assorb liquis. By now you can find chacks everywhere, but you can also create them with DIY. In this link http://amazon.com you can find the tutorial “how to make parfumed chalks”. In almost all the houses there are essential oil that we use for our wellness (such as massage oils, whirpool bath, balsamic fumes). We can put a few drops in our wardrobe as anti-moth and a few other in a bowl with pot pourri to perfume the house.

– CEDER OF VIRGINIA ESSENTIAL OIL

The Virginia Ceder is a plant with a high stem that grows in South America and from which is obtained the essential oil with a woody and quite resistant scent. This is another fragrance that has the propriety of removing moths from out closet. We can use on canvas bag or chalk.

– LAVENDER ESSENTIAL OIL

We have already seen in this article how effective as anti moth lavender flowers are. If we have a little lavender oil in the house we can use it in the same way. You can put a few drops on canvas bag or decorative chalk. It’s important consider that is an oil so it’s oily. You need to take care to avoid that it come into contact with fabric as not to stain them.

– PATCHOULI ESSENTIAL OIL

A very good and particular fragrance is the one of the patchouli essential oil. This is quite woody so it’s reccomended for young people and men. We can use a few drops  on a cotton pad, on a canvas bag or on  decorative chalk, as we think is better. The scent removes moths  but it also has a good effect on our mood because it acts on the brain by producing endorphin (a natural euphoric). In addition, the fragrance of Patchouli is an excellent aphrodisiac.

7. PERFUMED BARS SOAPS AND ALEPPO SOAP

Perfumed bars are also good for this purpose. Usually in our homes we use soap dispenser to wash our hands but sometimes we find at country fairs perfumued bars that attract us and we buy them. If you want to use a perfumed bar as anti moth just remove the casing from it and then place it in your closet. The important thing is that the bar is natural and made with the essential oils whose parfume is one of those that moths don’t like, so lavander, cinnamon and cloves will be fine.

– ALEPPO SOAP

Another kind of soap that is very usefull as anti moth is the one of Aleppo. It’s made with olive oil and laurel. It’s called in this way because it’s a product born in Syria in the city of Aleppo. The laureal oil cointened is 60% so it can be considered as a good anti moth. This soap is usually bought as beauty elixir. We can also wash our hair with this soap in order to make them silky. Who has this soap at home can take some flakes and put them in the closet. This will help with the moth attack. A useful idea is to use this soap for the bathroom and when it’s consumed you can use the last part (that must be completly dried) crumbling it and inserting it in one of the nice canvas bags.  

8. TIGER BALM

The tiger balm is what everyone should have at home. You can use it in several ways. I bought it in a organic shop and i use it very often. It relieves from the muscle pain and is a good nasal decongestant. It’s a natural product but you must remind that it has a smalle percentage of camphor. Some of its ingredients could cause skin irritation so it’s better that you consult your docter before using it.

However we can use it as anti moth and as insect repellent. You just need to prepare some cotton balls with a little tiger balm on it. You can use it in your closet or place them in your room to perfume the enviroment and remove insects. You can also place some cotton balls in the shoe rack (even directly in the shoe) as a remedy to remove bad smells.

WHY DO YOU NEED AN ANTI MOTH?

During the spring season you need to change your winter closet with your summer closet. We put emphasis on doing it because the good weather is coming, great energy source for alla of us. To preserve at the best our winter clothes, coats and blankets we must use a good anti moth. Moths, those very disturbing little insects, here are all year long and it’s very difficult to find them. Actually moth are parte of the family of lepidopterans and are the larva which feed themselfs with fibers of wool and cotton. For this reason they live in the midst of the fabrics and we can spot them when we find holes in sweaters and blankets. Usually moths enter through windows and settle in a warm and safe place. That’s why  moths look for our closet, since they are dark and usually warm and humid places.

LET’S START WITH THE RIGHT OPERATION

With the occasion of the new season is very useful to procede with the wardrobe change and do the right maneuvers to eliminate this serious fest. After using our coats and blankets, we have to wash them thorughly or take them to the laundry. It would be better to store coats and wool clothes in zippered bag so they will be ready for the future use. Sweaters, and everything else that we know we aren’t going to use until the next winter, have to be accuratly fold and placed  in boxes or chests of drawers with anti moth.

You should do this because the lepidopteran female lays more eggs at the time and then all the new larvae will look for food. They are so tiny, one millimter circa, that it’s difficult to find them with the naked eye. Once they become adult, the females lay other eggs and then finish their life cycle. The period in which each larva try to feed itselfs it’s about two months and our aim is to make the enviroment unfavoreble to their growth. A good anti moth prevent all this.

WHICH ARE THE FRAGANCES THAT MOTHS DON’T LIKE?

There are several natural possibilities to destroy moths. In the following article i am going to propose some very simple but above all very effective. Indeed, there are some fragances very awful to moths so we can use them individually or create various combination between them. In the case that there are particularly delicate clothes or garmentes (silk, chiffon, white clothes) our creations can not put directly in contact with the fabrics by using a tissue sheets.

CONCLUSIONS

Have you seen how many nice methods we have to preserve our fabrics and, at the sime, improve the quality of the enviroment where we live? Putting natural products in our homes is healthy for the whole family and extremely safer. When you have childern, who like putting in their mouth everything they can reach, is better to prefear nontoxic substances. We also do good to our pets, who might come into contact with dangerous substances.

We create with our hands and our fantasy evenrything that can keep the house healthy and clean. And if we have time and are in the mood, we can also create personalized antimoth bags to give to our mothers, sisters and friends for a birthday or a special occasion with a card that says: “this is a natural antimoth createad especially for you. It will give a new life to your fabrics and will inebriate your sense of smell. And every time that you will smell it you will know that i’m thinking about you”.

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