Geranium Oil vs. Geraniol: Which Repels Mosquitoes Better?
The short answer
- Geranium oil is a whole essential oil. Geraniol is one compound inside it, and usually not the main one.
- In skin tests, geranium oil gave some protection against mosquitoes and little or none against ticks. Geraniol protected against both for more than an hour.
- If you want geraniol’s results, look for “geraniol” on the label, with its percentage.
Plenty of natural repellents use “geranium oil” and “geraniol” as if they were interchangeable. I understand why: they share a name, a plant and a rosy smell. But they aren’t the same thing, and the difference is most of the reason Notch works the way it does.
One is an oil. The other is in it.
Geranium oil is distilled from rose-scented geranium plants (Pelargonium), and like most essential oils it’s a blend of dozens of compounds. The two biggest are usually citronellol and geraniol, with linalool and others behind them. How much of each depends on where and how the plants were grown.
Geraniol is one specific compound. It turns up in geranium oil, but also in rose, palmarosa, citronella and lemongrass oils, and it’s the most thoroughly studied plant-based repellent active, with evidence against both mosquitoes and ticks.
5–20%
How much of a typical geranium oil is geraniol, by the international standard. The rest is mostly citronellol and other compounds.
Mahboubi & Valian 2019, Clinical Phytoscience1
Everything you need to know about geraniol
What the skin tests show
In a 2023 study that put 20 plant-based ingredients on human skin, geranium oil held mosquitoes off for more than 30 minutes. Geraniol was one of only four ingredients to pass an hour.2 Ticks were the bigger gap: geranium oil didn’t protect against blacklegged ticks, while geraniol did for more than an hour.2 A 2024 CDC review of minimum-risk ingredients told a similar story, with geranium oil in the middle of the pack against ticks and geraniol among the top three.3
| Geranium oil | Geraniol | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A whole essential oil | A single compound |
| Geraniol content | Roughly 5% to 20%1 | All of it |
| Mosquitoes (skin tests) | More than 30 minutes2 | More than an hour2 |
| Ticks (skin tests) | Weak or none2 | More than an hour2 |
| On the label | “Geranium oil” | “Geraniol” |
Every geraniol study on BugRepellent.Guide
BugRepellent.Guide is a repellent research site run by the Notch team.
Why the label matters
Geraniol only works well above a certain strength: protection jumps sharply between 4% and 5%, and drops to minutes below that.4 Run the numbers on a product with 5% geranium oil and you get somewhere between 0.25% and 1% geraniol. It smells lovely. It isn’t anywhere near the level where the research says geraniol protects.
Both ingredients are on the EPA’s minimum-risk list, so you’ll see either on natural repellent labels, and the rules require each active to be listed with its percentage.5 That makes it easy to check.
That’s why Notch Nourish + Defend uses 5% geraniol rather than geranium oil, in a hydrating lotion that spreads evenly over exposed skin. Same soft, rosy scent. Reapply every hour.
How to read a minimum-risk label
One more question
Do geranium plants keep mosquitoes away?
We haven’t seen good evidence that growing geraniums keeps mosquitoes off you. A repellent works when it’s on your skin.
Want to go deeper? Here’s our guide to natural repellents that actually work, and BugRepellent.Guide’s side-by-side of natural repellents.
References
- Mahboubi M, Valian M. Anti-dermatophyte activity of Pelargonium graveolens essential oils against dermatophytes. Clinical Phytoscience, 2019. Cites the ISO standard ranges for geranium oil.
- Luker HA, et al. Repellent efficacy of 20 essential oils on Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and Ixodes scapularis ticks in contact-repellency assays. Scientific Reports, 2023. Ingredients tested at 10% in a lotion.
- Eisen L. Efficacy of unregulated minimum risk products to kill and repel ticks. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2024. Ingredients compared at 10%.
- Lopez AD, et al. Repellency of essential oils and plant-derived compounds against Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Insects, 2025.
- U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. 40 CFR 152.25, Exemptions for pesticides of a character not requiring FIFRA regulation.
