Amazon Oil Candle Repels Bugs Naturally
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 01.18.06
In Italy, home to this Treehugger, blood-sucking insects are not only smarter, smaller, and silent—by some freak act of science, they stick around for 10 months out of the year. So a natural insect-repelling candle like the Garden Candle, produced by Amazon Lights, is essential to terrazzo gatherings. In addition to citronella, rosemary, and thyme, the candle contains oil wax harvested by indigenous Amazon tribes from the fruit of the Andiroba tree—also known as the Brazilian mahogany. This oil magically makes pesky insects lose their appetite (meaning, they don’t feel like snacking on you). Plus, since the candle does not kill, just repels, it is not an environmentally-altering insecticide.
And we should probably mention it actually smells good...the Garden Candle burns with this subtle crushed pine needle scent for up to 28 hours. Amazon Lights lists its price as somewhere between $8 and $12. Email info@amazonlights.com for retail locations. More about the Andiroba oil...
Andiroba oil has long been a medicine cabinet staple for Amazon tribes. In addition to repellent, the oil can be used as an anti-inflammatory aid, itch relief for bites and stings, liniment for muscle fatigue, lamp oil, massage oil, anti-arthritic and psoriasis aid, and scar healing. Amazon Lights, a supporter of the Community Trade in the Brazilian Amazon, purchases the oil through the Amazon Co-op, a non-profit organization which raises donations and develops sustainable businesses for eight Indian tribes in the Brazilian Amazon. ::Amazon Lights ::Amazon Co-op
If it repells bugs, chances are it is toxic to some extent and natural selection has taught the bugs to avoid the scent because it is deadly. Being "all natural" doesn't mean it's automatically safe; botulism, nicotine, deadly toad secretions and cobra poison are all "natural". Another example is nutmeg: nutmeg is a hallucinogen, and may cause brain damage in large doses. In fact, almost every spice we eat has as its active flavor a chemical developed to repel some sort of pest; we just find the toxins tingly in small doses. Even cinnamon's active chemical is mildly toxic (and it repells mosquitos and tics as a result). Has this been tested for safety, or do they presume it is not an "environmentally altering pesticide" off the bat just because it came from a tree?
The notion of some exotic chemical extracted from some Amazon tree being burnt and the products of combustion filling the air I breathe is not reassuring, not to me at least. I know better than to assume that it has to be benign because it comes from the Amazon.
To give you an idea of what I mean, you can make a very potent natural poison for ridding your garden of slugs and snails by boiling tobacco. Nicotine water is extremely toxic to molusks, and when brewed like a tea, can easily kill humans if ingested. Columbine flowers give off toxins into the air that cause birth defects (via their pollen, if I remember correctly). (This is documented, though I can't find a link right now. The poor victims moved to a remote place full of columbine flowers hoping to flee polution, but they ran head-long into a plant's natural defense. As if in denial, the last thing they blamed were the flowers; they just presumed that if it were natural, it couldn't possibly be bad.)
Another option that works well (at least in the pacific northwest) is cedar incense. I've found this to be more effective than DEET at repelling mosquitos, it's cheap, and smells great to boot.