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     Aspire Bug Spray is made with natural ingredients and is completely free of toxins.  Sadly, many bug sprays rely on DEET, a seriously poisonous petrochemical, to repel insects.  Not only is this horrible for our skin, body and health, it's horrible for the enviornment, because eventually it washes off or we sweat it off, and it ends up on land or in waterways, where wildlife ingest it.  DEET is not naturally biodegradable, so it remains in the environment for long periods of time.  Do we really have to poison ourselves and our environment in order to repel bugs?  The good news is that Aspire has designed a safe and effective bug spray that contains only non-toxic, natural, organic, non-GMO ingredients.  The ingredients in Aspire Bug Spray are safe for our skin and the environment, and are effective at repelling bugs.  

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     Aspire bug spray is the simplest, cleanest possible way to repel bugs.  Best of all, Aspire Bug Spray is organic, non-GMO and biodegradable!  It’s all natural, in a base of organic ethyl alcohol, also known as ethanol, filled with a variety of ingredients and essential oils that are known to repel bugs.  Ethanol is made by fermentation of grains with yeast.  It's clean and effective, leaving no stain or residue on skin or clothing.  Basically, you spray your skin, and the alcohol evaporates, leaving the repellant essential oils behind, along with witch hazel and hemp oil, which soothe the skin.  The best part is, since it’s a liquid spray, the bottle can easily be refilled, eliminating yet another single-use plastic container from the waste stream!

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• Alcohol, Organic        

       Alcohol is the base ingredient in Aspire Bug Spray.  It acts as a carrier and dispersant for the active ingredients that repel the bugs.  There are thousands of different kinds of alcohols, and Aspire Bug Spray contains specially denatured alcohol, or SDA.  SDA is ethanol, a natural ingredient that is the same alcohol in adult beverages, to which a small amount of denaturant has been added.  SDA is typically used in cosmetics to ensure that it will never be imbibed, to avoid the expensive alcohol tax that's applied to adult beverages.  There are many ways to denature alcohol, and the alcohol Aspire uses is denatured with a small amount of bitterant, known as Bitrix.  Bitrix prevents consumers from drinking the alcohol, because it causes a gag reflex at extremely low concentrations, and is impossible to drink.  Yet, it has a rather pleasant banana-like smell.  The SDA in Aspire Bug Spray is made in the U.S.A. and is USDA organic certified.

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• Water is used to take the edge off the alcohol.  The water in Aspire Bug Spray comes from the top of the Rocky Mountains, via Clear Creek, which flows through Golden, and is the same water source as the famous "Rocky Mountain Spring Water" used at the Coors Brewery, just up the street from our shop.

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• Witch Hazel, Organic

        Witch Hazel is added as a soothing anti-inflammatory that remains on the skin after the alcohol evaporates.  Currently it comes from the northeastern U.S.A. and is organic.  Natural, rendered from witch hazel wood.

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• Citronella

        Citronella is the primary active ingredient in Aspire Bug Spray.  It is an essential oil that is commonly known to effectively repel a wide range of insects, including mosquitos, black flies, fleas and tics, without killing them.  Currently it comes from Indonesia and is organic.  Natural, rendered from citronella leaves.

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• Castor Oil, Organic

        Castor oil is an active ingredient that is known to repel bugs, as well as sooth the skin, and it remains on the skin after the alcohol evaporates.  Currently it comes from India.  Natural, rendered from castor beans.

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• Hemp Seed Oil, Organic

        Hemp seed oil is added as an emollient that remains on the skin after the alcohol evaporates.  Currently it comes from Canada.  Natural, rendered from hemp seeds.

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• Essential Oils are used to repel a wide range of insects with Aspire Bug Spray.  Essential oils are oils that are extracted from plants.  These oils are completely natural, since they are simply concentrated plant oils, and they are fully biodegradable.  The organic, non-GMO oils in the formulation include Lavender, Geranium, Rosemary, Peppermint, Grapefruit, Lemongrass, Cedarwood, Clove and Tea Tree.  None of the essential oils are from the U.S.A., and Aspire will continue to look for sources from the U.S.A. 

 

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• DEET, or N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, also called diethyltoluamide is a long-used petrochemical that does not biodegrade in the environment.  On the skin, it causes irritation, redness, rashes and swelling.  DEET emits an odor that many find unpleasant, leaves skin greasy, dissolves plastics and synthetic fabrics and interacts negatively with sunscreen, creating even more toxicity.  Who wants to rub something like that, something that actually dissolves plastic, all over their skin?  Or their children's skin?  At Aspire, we just want to repel the bugs, not kill them and poison oursleves and the environment in the process! 

• Petrochemicals such as propane, butane and isobutane.  These are used in less responsible bug sprays as dispersants.  Aspire Bug Spray uses naturally fermented ethanol for that purpose instead.

• Icaridin, also known as Picaridin, or Butan-2-yl 2-(2-hydroxyethyl)piperidine-1-carboxylate, is a more recently developed petrochemical synthesized from fossil fuels and is slightly less offensive than DEET.  At Aspire, we prefer to keep our ingredients simple and we avoid anything made from fossil fuels, which is how most synthetics are made.

• Preservatives.  Since Aspire Bug Spray has an alcohol base, preservatives are completely unnecessary, because nothing can grow in alcohol.  Preservatives can be pretty nasty.  After all, their sole purpose is to kill microbes, which can be inherently tricky to kill.  The trouble with preservatives is that it’s pretty much impossible to control what they kill and what they don’t kill, so when they enter our body through skin or glands, they will continue to kill the microbes that make up our bodily functions until they are spent.  One example is BHT, or butylated hydroxytoluene, which may be linked to liver and kidney damage. It may also cause skin damage.  BHT is banned in Europe and is a suspect carcinogen.  Another example is triclosan, which is an endocrine disruptor.  We really don’t want to be applying this kind of stuff to our skin, do we?

• Propylene Glycol is used to help form a solid base for some products that other ingredients can be suspended in.  The problem is, propylene glycol is made from petroleum, and at toxic levels, it has been found to cause severe neurological symptoms and seizures.  There have also been cases of nausea and vertigo.  Aspire Bug Spray is a liquid, so there is no need for a toxic solid base.

• Petroleum Products in general will not be found in Aspire Bug Spray.  Petrolatum, or petroleum jelly, can be found in some some products, and petrolatum can be contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Studies suggest that prolonged exposure to PAHs on the skin is associated with cancer.  Another example, PPG-3 Myristyl Ether, is sometimes used as an emollient.  We choose to use hemp seed oil in Aspire Bug Spray, a natural, plant-based ingredient.  Yet another is dipropylene glycol (petroleum based), which is used as a solvent in some products.  Aspire Bug Spray uses natural ethanol as the solvent, not petroleum products.  A study in 2011 published in the Journal of Women's Health found that hydrocarbons are the largest contaminants in the human body.  A good portion of these can be absorbed through the skin, which is the largest organ in the human body.  Let's not do that to ourselves!

• Petroleum Dyes.  We don't think it's necessary for the bug spray to be colored blue or green to work, also, who wants dyes on their clothes if they spray on clothes?  Sounds like another unneccessary petroleum product!