Coils, sticks or spray? Choosing your defence

Same botanicals, different delivery. The plants doing the work don't change much across the range — how you use them does. Here's how to pick.

Staying put? Coils.

A patio, a deck, a campsite you're not moving from for a few hours. Light a MooPoo or Zenza coil, set it on its stand, and let it hold a zone around you. Roughly an hour a coil, low smoke, and you can forget it's there — which is rather the point.

Want it tidier? Incense sticks.

Same idea as a coil with a smaller footprint and a cleaner look. Good for a table edge, a porch rail, a spot where a coil and stand feel like too much hardware. Slot one in, light it, move on.

On the move? Spray or patches.

Walking, hiking, drifting between the fire and the kitchen — you want the protection on you, not on the ground. The plant-oil spray goes on skin and clothing. The patches stick to a sleeve or a stroller and quietly do their thing for up to twelve hours. No smoke, no stand, nothing to set down.

It's the dog. The collar.

Fleas and ticks are a different fight, and your dog isn't going to hold a coil. The Flea & Tick collar carries a botanical-oil blend — geranium, citronella, cedarwood, lemongrass — for up to four months. Water-resistant, so a creek won't undo it.

The honest answer is most people end up with two: something that holds a zone, and something they can carry.

Whichever you reach for, it's the same short list of plants underneath, and the same short list of things left out — no synthetic pesticides, no pyrethroids, no DEET.