Natural Bug Spray Review: Miessence Bushflower Body Spray

Details:

Price: $17.95 for 4.2 oz. ($4.27/oz.)

Where to Purchase: My Miessence store

Active Ingredients: citronella essential oil, olive tea tree essential oil, tea tree essential oil, lemon tea tree essential oil, neem extract [note: my bottle, which I just ordered, does not include this ingredient but it is on the website. ???], bitter orange fruit extract

Safety Notes: This is sourced organically to the highest standards and does not include any ingredients not safe for children.

Other Ingredients: aloe vera leaf juice, water, sclerotium rolfsii gum

Easy to use? Unfortunately, no. The Miessence product is really a runny, squirtable lotion that you have to rub onto your skin. With four kids and two adults in the family, we just don’t have time to be messing around with a lotion-type product for bugs.

Sticky? Not so bad.

How does it smell? Nice. I can really smell the lemon and citronella.

Did it prevent mosquito bites? It does seem that this bug spray is effective on skin, but since one cannot at all apply it to clothing, it loses some power in the overall battle against bugs. We did use it once when another brand was totally failing, and within a minute 95% of the bugs stopped bugging us! It was a pretty impressive display of efficacy.

KS recommends? Sadly, no. I am happy that this is one of four kid-safe brands I tried, and I’m also happy that the price per ounce isn’t too terrible. But even though I technically “sell” this product in my store (which I just have because of the probiotics we use in the family), I don’t think busy families should buy it. I’d rather have an actual spray. (Our sprayer piece broke, too, but we just opened the bottle and rubbed it on, so it wasn’t as big of a deal as if a “real” spray broke.) If you love the ingredients, however, and aren’t worried about having to rub it in, then the product will be up to your standard for sure.

2018 note: The bottle looks different online, and I wonder if it is any thinner and spray-able! I may have to retest this one…