Does cedar oil kill or keep ticks away? Here is what to know about this control option.
If you’re dealing with tick problems, the natural response will be to find an effective remedy to get rid of the pest.
Speaking of an effective remedy, a lot of products are available. These include both natural and chemical pesticide sprays. Here, we want to find out more about cedar oil for tick control.
Using Cedar Oil Spray for Ticks
Does it work? How does it work? All these are important questions we’ll be answering. Anyone dealing with tick issues will desperately want a solution to their problem.
If you’ve heard about the potency of cedar oil on ticks, you’ll want to read on to find further details.
About Cedar Oil Tick Control
This is an essential oil extracted from conifer trees.
Cedar oil has a lot of pest control uses including having insecticidal properties (Cedarcide), used as an antiseptic, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, diuretic, and antispasmodic.
Asides from being used for tick extermination, cedar oil can be used for hair loss treatments and other scalp conditions.
What more? This essential oil is used on the skin, as aromatherapy, and for anxiety treatments. In terms of its insecticidal properties, cedar oil kills and repels mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas.
This already sounds like the perfect solution for your tick problem right? You’ll want to read on for more.
How it Works
In a quest to rid your home of ticks, you’ll need to know the workings of a pesticide (in this case cedar oil).
This essential oil works in varying ways to exterminate ticks. Examples include suffocation, pheromone disruption, and emulsification.
Other ways pheromones work to eliminate ticks include disruption of bodily chemistry, dissolution, and dehydration. All of these points will make little sense without further explanation.
So, let’s take a look at each of these effects of cedar oil spray use on ticks.
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Suffocation
When cedar oil spray is applied on ticks, they easily suffocate to death.
All insect pests need to breathe. Unlike mammals, ticks breathe through openings on their body surfaces. As such, whenever cedar spray is applied on ticks, they sense danger and close the openings making it impossible to breathe.
Due to this defensive action, ticks end up suffocating themselves. For this method of elimination to be possible, you’ll need to apply cedar spray directly on tick bodies.
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Pheromone Disruption
Most insects can easily navigate to food sources, for mating and a whole lot of biological processes through the secretion of pheromones.
Now, applying cedar oil spray around tick-infested areas achieves the aim of disorientation.
If they aren’t dead already by suffocation, ticks will unable to find food (blood). Plus, this essential oil messes up with their body mechanisms which in turn lead to their death.
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Emulsification
Have you ever thought about ticks dying through emulsification? They do!
This is simply the process whereby fat particles are broken down. This amounts to the disintegration of fats into tiny bits making them fluid. This is exactly what happens when you apply cedar oil spray on ticks.
The emulsifying effects of cedar oil on ticks aren’t readily visible outwardly. However, it achieves the main objective which is to exterminate them.
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Disruption of Bodily Chemistry
If ticks have been a reoccurring problem you’ve been unable to contain, cedar oil spray application may provide you lasting relief. A whole lot of chemical processes occur within a tick’s body.
Based on this fact, you want to disrupt by introducing something toxic.
Having applied cedar oil spray on ticks, there’s a disruption of the acidic content within the tick’s body. With such a condition, ticks are unable to survive and easily die off.
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Dissolution
Can cedar oil spray really dissolve ticks?
To find answers, you’ll need to consider this pest at its early developmental stage. Here, we’re talking about the egg, larvae, and pupae stage. During this period of development, ticks are the most vulnerable.
Cedar oil spray easily dissolves ticks at such a stage of development.
So, does that mean it won’t have any effect on adult ticks? It will! Although it might not dissolve them totally as it will for young ticks, still it dissolves the exoskeletons of adult ticks to a certain degree.
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Dehydration
Most pests thrive when hydrated. They prefer areas of moisture to grow and breed. However, the introduction of cedar oil spray serves to cause a major imbalance in moisture content.
When spayed on their bodies, cedar oil eliminates such moisture, thus creating a situation where they die of moisture loss or dehydration.
How to Use Cedar Oil Spray To Control Ticks
With its efficacy confirmed, it’s necessary to now consider how to apply cedar oil in the most effective way possible.
There are several ways to do this, one of which includes spraying on clothing. Cedar oil spray can also be used as a yard or lawn treatment.
You can also apply this essential oil to the skin.
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Spray-on Clothing
Ticks will cling onto just about anything to position themselves properly for the next feeding session. It’s common knowledge that these pests feed on blood. You can fight back by having your clothes sprayed with cedar oil.
Whether it touches them directly or not, ticks are either exterminated or repelled from your body. You might want to conduct a more comprehensive treatment of your property by calling pest management services.
You’ll need to be careful about what types of clothes you spray this on.
Certain materials may get damaged. You’ll have to find out if it’s safe enough to apply cedar oil on a certain fabric.
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Used for Lawn and Yard Treatment
Ticks may be present around your yard or lawn.
Whatever the case, have such areas sprayed with a solution of cedar oil. You’ll need to add about 1.3 percent cedar oil to about 98.7 percent water to achieve the dilution rate.
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Skin Application
Also, consider the topical application of cedar oil spray for tick control.
However, you’ll need to first test it on a small patch of your skin to see if it’s going to react adversely. If it doesn’t adversely react, you can apply it around affected parts of your skin.
Cedar oil spray affects ticks in a variety of ways as seen above. Your tick problem shouldn’t be difficult to handle when you have a reliable essential oil like cedar oil.