Make a Mosquito Repelling Candle

One day our grandson was coming over and I thought it would be fun for us to work on an Instructable together. But what should we do? Something for the yard could be a fun project. At one time I had seen that someone made a mosquito repelling candle out of a few household items. He is almost 12 and I thought he would enjoy making one with me. I had him do the creating and I took the pictures. Here is how we did it.

olive oil

empty can, washed and dried

toilet paper roll

lighter

scissors

fresh mint

Cut 2 sprigs of fresh mint.

Place the mint into the bottom of the can.

Remove the cardboard roll from the center of the toilet paper. If you would like, you can save the cardboard roll for a future Instructable!

Squash and press the toilet paper into the can. Leave a small amount of toilet paper sticking up out of the center.

Pour about 1/2 cup olive oil over the toilet paper in the can.

Use the lighter to light the center of the toilet paper.

Here is the lit mosquito candle. My grandson, John thought it as pretty cool!

The candle will burn for quite a few hours, until the oil and toilet paper burn out. I read that 20% olive oil solutions have a 71% repellency rate for up to 8 hours. I also read that, besides mint, mosquitoes are turned off by cinnamon, cedar, catnip or lavender, if you prefer to use one of them.

If desired, you can blow your candle out and save it for another use when you need to keep mosquitoes away. And it makes a great conversation piece! Thanks for viewing this Instructable! If you give this a try, let me know in the comments!