And here’s the thing. We’re intentional about everything else we put on our bodies. Our perfume, our lotion, how our skin looks and feels. That’s how we express ourselves. Repellent is the one product that asks you to hand all of it over, and I’ve never understood why we just accept that.

So I went looking for something better. Something that worked, was actually good for your skin, and smelled like vanilla (I’m a vanilla girly, I admit it). There was nothing. Not one thing.

So I decided to make it myself.

A little about me, since you’re still here.

I’m a dancer. I trained at the Boston Conservatory and danced professionally before an injury made me change direction. I found hot yoga while I was healing and it gave me my body back. I loved that world enough to stay in it, starting at the front desk of a studio here in LA and working my way up to running them. The best part for me was watching someone find confidence they didn’t know they had.

That has always been a passion of mine.

At this point you’re probably wondering how I managed to make this product. Did I experiment in my basement? Did I go back to school and become a chemist?! Fun theories, but no. I found one. And she’s amazing. The story of how we met is honestly a little unbelievable too, but that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, she’s here in LA too, and we worked through 7 versions to get Bug Babe right. It’s exactly what I pictured by that pool, and honestly better.

Then came the part nobody warned me about. Anything that actually repels mosquitoes the way I needed has to be registered with the EPA first. The process takes years.

And here’s what I kept coming back to. The category is split in two. One side works and doesn’t care how it smells or how it feels on you. The other side is prettier, but it’s never worked for me, and citronella still isn’t how I want to smell.

I wanted both. Something that actually protects you, made with the care you’d expect from anything else you put on your skin.

So yeah, it’s hard. That’s exactly why nobody has done it.

But I’ve got you. I’m doing it.

And when it gets really hard, I always come back to who this is really for.

The backyard dinner where you’re getting eaten alive and the only option is the sticky bottle under the sink. The wedding where you don’t want to smell like a citronella candle. The summer night where you want him leaning in because you smell incredible, not backing off because you smell like bug spray.

It’s for the version of me sitting by that pool in Portugal.

And it’s for you.

You deserve a repellent you actually want to put on. I’m making it.

If you’ve made it this far, there’s one more thing I want you to know about me. I was a painfully shy kid. I barely talked. I even joined the mime club in high school specifically so I wouldn’t have to. If you’d told that girl she’d start a company on her own and take on a federal registration process, she would not have believed you. Some days I still don’t.

I’m doing it for her. And if any of this sounds like you, I want you to hear it.

That shy kid decided she didn’t have anything worth saying. She was wrong.

I wish she could see this. I can’t tell her, so I’m telling you.

Laura