The Lowest-Rated Bug Spray Named By Consumer Reports Is Made With Essential Oils

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Bringing a good bug spray along on your next hike or camping trip can make the difference between a fun adventure and a miserable outing. While there are plenty of non-traditional and DIY bug repellents you can make yourself to try and repel mosquitoes, ticks, and other annoying critters in the woods, sometimes you just need a powerful spray you can quickly apply and know will work. Consumer Reports (CR) tested 57 bug repellents in the form of wipes, aerosols, and pumps, and ranked them for their effectiveness at discouraging biting bugs. Of all the brands tested, Badger Anti-Bug Shake and Spray landed squarely at the bottom.

Made entirely of essential oils including cedar, lemongrass, peppermint, citronella, and rosemary, Badger’s bug spray is marketed as “family friendly” and organic, claiming to provide three hours of bug protection without harsh ingredients. That all sounds great for folks wanting to keep chemicals off their skin. But although Badger also has geranium oil, which is an effective DIY solution for repelling ticks, it simply didn’t measure up in CR’s testing against bug sprays with active ingredients like DEET, which EPA studies have found is effective against mosquitoes and ticks for many hours. After spraying or wiping their arms with the different repellents, CR’s lab testers stuck their arms into cages filled with mosquitoes to see which brands worked best (sounds fun). Badger’s natural spray came in dead last.

Consumer Reports’ tests measured how long it took for the first bite to happen, adding in variables like sweating to calculate the real-world duration of a spray’s effectiveness. Most of the brands that performed best had DEET as the active ingredient, although a couple of top performers had oil of lemon eucalyptus or picaridin as the main repellent. Badger, having none of those ingredients, ended up offering very poor protection against bug bites. Badger wasn’t alone in its ineffectiveness. CR found in general that natural bug sprays with essential oils as their main active ingredients performed poorly.

The good news about Badger is that it is totally free of synthetic chemicals and comes in eco-friendly, recycled packaging. It actually has thousands of 5-star reviews on Amazon, and plenty of online reviewers say that it works. Many particularly like its fresh, citrus scent. But others find that it leaves a greasy residue behind, which is unpleasant. CR’s testing found that Badger didn’t damage materials like cotton and leather, unlike some more effective sprays and wipes. Still, it is clear from CR’s tests that Badger is not among the best repellents to keep away ticks, mosquitoes, or other bugs for very long. Since these bugs can carry very serious diseases like Lyme disease, Zika, and West Nile virus, you may want to consider one of CR’s top recommended brands like Ben’s 30 and Off, which relies on DEET instead of essential oils to keep the bugs at bay.