Why worry about putting sunscreen on before or after mosquito repellent AND why worry about harmful chemicals found in BOTH commercially when you can make your own DIY natural mosquito repellent that also works as an effective natural sunscreen?

Our super simple 3 ingredient organic and natural mosquito repellent safe for you and your kids as opposed to DEET containing repellents, also acts as an effective sunscreen at the same time.

Most people searching for healthy natural alternatives for mosquito repellent and sunscreen would love not to buy an abundance of ingredients that may expire before being used or could just end up being too expensive.

The ingredients used here are often used in many other healthy alternatives like cooking and even acne treatments facial cleansers.

The 3 ingredients for our simple and effective mosquito repellent and sunscreen are:

Organic extra virgin olive oil

Organic lemongrass essential oil

Organic tea tree essential oil

Mixing these ingredients are so simple. You just need to know to add only 1 drop of tea tree oil per 12 drops of olive oil and add lemongrass somewhere in the middle:). That easy! Do read our warnings about tea tree oil. Less is more with tea tree oil. You don’t need very much at all to work effectively.

I describe these ingredients used for natural mosquito repellent more in-depth in our previous article here.

I have been using this easy olive oil sunscreen mixture as a mosquito repellent for my son and me for a few years now and to my surprise, it also worked well as a sunscreen mixture!

I also found that the olive oil stays on the skin very well while swimming. My son was swimming for 2 hours after I applied this mixture. I didn’t see any redness. I applied again just in case for another 2 hours. No burning in the middle of the day, 105 degrees out living in Arizona. It worked very well for us!

How can this olive oil natural mixture effectively work as sunscreen also?

These natural plant ingredients don’t have a high SPF as commercial sunscreens but they do contain a degree of SPF AND offer special plant properties to help protect your skin that commercial products DON’T contain.

How much SPF does each of these plant oils contain?

Olive oil – SPF 7.5

Lemongrass oil – SPF 6.3

Tea Tree Oil – SPF 1.7

The SPF in these oils doesn’t seem like much but here’s how you calculate how long you can stay in the sun with a given SPF:

Minutes to burn without sunscreen X SPF number = Maximum sun exposure time

Let’s do this together, I usually burn after 20 minutes and we’ll just use SPF of 7.

20 X 7 = 140 minutes or around 2 and 1/2 hours of UV protection.

An SPF of 7 doesn’t sound too bad!

The SPF is not 100% full proof to prevent all UV rays but it reduces over 90% if covered correctly over your skin and it’s still best to find some shade periodically.

The SPF is not the best part about these natural ingredients working as sunscreen, these other special plant properties of the oils are the most impressive of their sunscreen effectiveness:

Olive oil contains squalene, a plant peptide that protects our sensitive lipids in our skins often damaged by the sun’s UV rays. Squalene is actually being used in many luxurious skin care products as an anti-aging ingredient (Women over 50, read how to moisturize your skin with olive oil). Added bonus! Coconut oil doesn’t offer these benefits if you’ve been using a DIY coconut sunscreen mixture.

All of the oils in the ingredients contain powerful anti-oxidants protecting the skin against the oxidative damage of the sun.

Olive oil contains quercetin. Quercetin was tested as an effective topical sunscreen providing protection against both UVB rays and UVA. UVA rays are highest during the summer. Only broad-spectrum conventional sunscreens protect against UVA and UVB accounting for a small percentage of commercial sunscreens. They also come with many harmful chemicals for you and the environment.

Tea tree oil is an effective antiseptic, fungicide, and germicide that can increase blood flow to capillaries, bringing nutrients to the skin stimulating our bodies natural defense against UV rays. Tea tree oil has also been proven to be more effective than zinc oxide at treating eczema. This means its safe for those with sensitive skin.

Lemongrass oil is NOT a phototoxic essential oil like citrus oils. Let’s not confuse lemongrass for lemon. Lemongrass is a strong anti-oxidant, gentle on the skin, a higher SPF closer to olive oil, and smells good for us but smells bad to mosquitos.

The olive oil in this simple and effective natural sunscreen mixture is the most important ingredient. Its many benefits are traced all the way back to ancient Egypt and Greece being delivered by the barrels to these countries every day.

Olive oil can solve our mosquito AND sun exposure problems as well as many wintertime problems after the summer fun is over.

This post may contain affiliate links. Read our Affiliate Disclosure here.

Where can you find the ingredients needed for this simple and effective natural mosquito repellent and sunscreen?

I don’t recommend getting your essential oils from the most popular distributors we have all heard of by now. You can learn why from this warning I wrote here on the 7 deadly essential oils. Those companies we know who we’re talking about, are not organic.

The oils I’m going to recommend are USDA organic as well as Oregon Tilth certified and have gone through many other trustworthy testing and certifications to ensure purity. The olive oil has won some very impressive awards!

You can find these oils below by clicking the links or the images to read the Amazon reviews. I take advantage of Amazon Prime deals and I love limiting my drive time. Amazon also has a very cool eco-friendly, charitable give-back-box option that I fully support.

Best Lemongrass Essential Oil Pure Certified Organic



Please do bookmark this page if you forget the ingredients and want to save for mixing later. Also, share this information with your friends and families. Sunscreen and mosquito repellent SHOULD be all-in-one and natural.

The mosquitoes will be getting worse every year with increased risk of disease especially after all the flooding we have endured.

Skin cancer cases are also increasing. Please stay safe, keep your friends and family safe. Read the references to my research below if you have read something different about the effectiveness of these oils.

There are risks involved with any natural remedy so do read our home remedy warnings before trying anything new on your skin.

References