The ingredients in "Moth Away" are peppermint, rosemary, thyme, and cloves. Tom Parker -----Original Message----- From: Michael Rebman <[email protected]> To: pestlist <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Feb 28, 2019 6:30 pm Subject: Re: [pestlist] "Moth Away" Herbal Moth Repellent
Greetings, >From online reviews, it appears to be a fragrance packet that smells nice and >supposedly deters pantry moths; it does not contain active ingredients. It >does not kill pests, unless mint herbs, rosemary, thyme, and clove oils have >pest-killing odors. I cannot find an MSDS for it. Without that, or without >cutting open one of those packets, I would assume it is just dried herbs >inside of a packet. It appears to be manufactured by a company that otherwise >specializes in home storage items like closet organizers. Peppermint oil, rosemary oil, thyme oil, and clove oil will kill certain pests if the concentrated oils physically contact the pests in question, by poisoning the pests. But that seems to be mostly against small, soft-bodied pests like mites. Highly-concentrated essential oil can kill larger insects, but only if sprayed directly onto the insects. Clove oil, patchouli, and other fragrances will deter certain pests from approaching for a certain amount of time when sprayed in a concentrated form, but the odor will not harm the pests, and the odor fades fairly quickly, because essential oils break down very quickly. I cannot find anything online about those deterring moths, except for "natural" websites, blogs, Readers Digest, and the like. The only reputable sources I can find online about those ingredients indicate that they work by directly spraying or dusting the pests in question, mostly in agricultural settings, or by working the ingredients into a target material for short-term protection (like working clove dust or clove oil directly into a fabric). I personally would not want to use it or other herbal fragrance packets in collections storage, partially because I could see it potentially attracting pests (as even the ingredients of the packet have to be treated with insecticides while at the farm), and partially because it would give artifacts an odor. I sincerely doubt anybody has done an Oddy Test on herbal fragrance packets. Thank you, Michael R. On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 3:22 PM Todd Holmberg <[email protected]> wrote: Hello Group, Today a shipment of textiles came to the museum, and there were some of these packets inside. I am wondering if anyone in this group can speak to these. I feel like I trust the opinions from this group over statements online from the manufacturers or reviews from supposed customers. Does anyone know if these have actually been shown to have an effect on moths? If yes, which varieties? If anyone has any opinions about these, I would be interested in hearing them. Thanks,Todd -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/CAKMK8iEvXQ8HS2ptcpMTdhfwTPjsAq9jAL6inQywet4gs3truQ%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/1644979075.7492175.1551441469572%40mail.yahoo.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
