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Does Lavender Oil Repel Ants? (Read This First!)

Our houses are nests of many seen and unseen creatures, starting from bugs, spiders to ants. Usually these creatures live in harmony in our homes but sometimes, if they increase in numbers – they could be seen to interfere with our household commodities. 

Ants are the most common type of insects that infest our houses – you can learn about keeping them in control from the extract below.

Does lavender oil repel ants?

Lavender oils work exceptionally well as an ant deterrent to repel ants off your house. The oil can be used in various methods such as rubbing, spraying or sprinkling over surfaces with high ant activity. You can also soak the oil on cotton balls and place them in active locations.

Lavender oil is extracted from the lavender flowers from the lavender plant. The flower is known for its strong scent, not only that, it has other uses as well for use as perfumes, insect repellents etc. 

The essential oils made of the lavender flowers retain all the properties of the flowers – which is why the oils have such a strong fragrance. 

The essential oil’s strong scent can be used as a pest repellent, which is why many insect repellents can be found containing lavender flower extract. However, you can use the essential oil of lavender flowers to achieve the same purpose. 

The essential oil can be used both as spray or soaked in cotton or paper.

Using lavender oil to repel ant infestation is not only effective but also environmentally safe. The lavender oil contains natural strong scenting elements in them which repel the ants without putting other lifeforms in harm’s way. 

Whereas chemical insect repellents contain poisonous ingredients which does keep ants away but also puts other animals or children at health risk.

In order to repel ants, you can create an oil mixture with one part lavender oil and 10 parts of olive oil. Spray the mixture in areas where you noticed active ant activity or in narrow crevices around the house – that’s where ants usually reside. 

If the number of ants are still persistent, then the problem lies outside – look around the outskirts of your house to look for ant mounds, that is the source of ants coming into your house. 

Spray the mixture around your house and into the ant mound as well – repeat this process every three days until the ants are nowhere to be seen.

Does lavender oil attract ants? Do ants like lavender oil?

Lavender oil is found by extracting the oil from the flower of lavender plants, and the essential oil is just as potent and has an intensely strong scent as the flower itself. Which makes it disliked by most insects – including ants. 

The strong scent of the lavender oil makes it an essential ingredient in many insect repellents or the oil itself is used to deter insects.

Ants do not like lavender oil at all – therefore lavender oils do not attract ants. If you wish to get rid of ants from your house or any other location – using lavender oil as a spray or soaking cotton with the oil can be an effective way of keeping the area ant free. 

Lavenders are so powerful ant deterrents that even dry lavender leaves or flowers can be kept in corners of the room and still discourage entry of ants.

3 reason why lavender oil repels ants

Lavender oils seem to be one of the most effective methods of keeping ants away from your vicinity, but why do these oils cause the ants to stop in their tracks? Find out in the list below: 

Lavender oils have strong scent:

Lavender flowers are one of those flowers that have amazing scent diffusion which causes their strong scents to reach a wide area. 

Since ants have excessively sensitive odor receptors, the ants pick up the lavender oil scent and get discouraged to approach the source of such strong fragrance.

Lavender oils might cause irritation to ants:

If you have sprayed the lavender oil directly onto the ants, then it may cause them to flee far away from the area as lavender oil causes irritation to ants. Although lavender oils are not poisonous, ants cannot stand its strong odor. 

Also if lavender oil is sprayed directly into ants, the strong odor might disorient their sense of smell and cause them to scatter haphazardly in random directions.

Lavender oil’s scent is disliked by ants: 

Lavender oil has an intensely strong odor and can reach a wider area – but those are not the only reason why lavender oils are so effective at keeping ants away. 

The scent of certain flowers and herbs such as lavender, peppermint are naturally disliked by many bugs and insects – including ants. 

The scent of lavenders is also predominantly present in lavender essential oils, which the ants dislike. When they smell the scent of lavender oils in any area, they get disgusted by it and refrain from going there.

How does lavender oil deter ants?

Ants are one of insects with one of the most powerful senses of smell because they have very sensitive odor receptors that allow them to detect faint smell from a far away distance.

Lavender oils on the other hand are known to have a distinctively strong smell and also their smell is known to be highly disliked by pests and insects.

Therefore, the smell of lavender oil turns the strong sense of smell of ants against them. Since ants dislike the smell of lavender and lavender flowers have a strong, widespread fragrance, the ants naturally steer out of the areas from where the scent of lavender is leaking out from.

Does lavender oil harm ants?

Ants are one of the insects that are commonly seen to infest households across the world. Ants are particularly attracted to food leftovers, exposed sweets or any other items of interest that might be lying in the kitchen trash can. 

The sheer number and size of ants makes it difficult to control them and get rid of them.

Many pest control and insect repellents found in the market use harmful chemicals such as DEET which not only harm ants but also puts your pets or children at the risk of exposure to these dangerous chemicals. 

These chemical insecticides can have adverse health effects on your pets or children – which is why most people switch to natural solutions such as lavender oil. 

Lavender oil does not harm ants and is completely natural. It can effectively keep away ants from your house while giving your house a nice fragrance. 

How do you use lavender to get rid of ants?

In order to properly get rid of ants using lavender oil, follow the steps detailed below:

Collect the items needed:

To repel ants, you need very few items that are commonly found in most households. First off, you would obviously need lavender essential oil and besides that, you need either several cotton balls or tissue paper or balls of fabric – anything that can absorb the oils well. 

However, cotton balls work exceptionally well since it absorbs and retains the greatest amount of the essential oil compared to its size – which makes them long lasting and efficient.

Apply lavender oil into cotton balls:

Next step is to prepare the cotton balls with the lavender oil – you can do this by applying 4-5 drops of lavender oil into the cotton ball using a dropper. But the amount of drops vary according to the size of the cotton ball.

If you use a few large size cotton balls, use 5-6 drops of lavender oil but if you use many smaller sized cotton balls – then 3-4 drops should be sufficient. You should apply 2-3 drops of the oil in tissues or fabric since they cannot retain too much of the oil.

Place them into active locations:

Afterwards, you need to locate the places where ant have been spotted to be active. These locations are usually the kitchen, the washroom and the dining room – while rarely being seen in bedrooms. 

Once you spotted the locations, you can place the cotton balls in several corners according to the intensity of ant activity.

Replace and repeat:

Finally, wait for 2-3 days and observe how much the ant activity has decreased. If not completely gone, replace the cotton balls with newly treated ones and repeat the process at 3 days interval until no more ants are seen around your house.

Final Thoughts

Lavender oils work incredibly well as an ant repellent, keeping ants away from your home. The oil can be applied in a variety of ways, including rubbing, spraying, or sprinkling over ant-infested surfaces. You can also soak cotton balls in the oil and place them in active areas.