5 Top Tips for Moth Eradication
Posted on March 03 2022
Moths can cause irreparable damage to our favourite garments, so here are our top tips on how to protect your precious garments and cashmeres :
- Never store away unwashed knitwear, always wash or dry clean before storing for the summer. You can be sure the moths will find the speck you didn't notice.
- Ensure that the drawer or cupboard is also clean & dust free, particularly round the edges where fluff can gather, this is just the place they like to hide.
- Place French Moth Herbs Bag in your wardrobe and drawers to ward off moths.
- Spray drawers or cupboards with French Moth Herbs Spray regularly through the season.
- Pack away clean clothes in breathable containers and make sure that you brush vigorously your unworn coats and cardigans regularly, particularly turning out any fluff that may gather in the pockets.
The story behind Angela's anti-moth formula
Angela Flanders’ French Moth Herbs were born from a very practical and urgent need – to rid her house of an invasion of moths that, Trojan horse-like, had inveigled their way into her workshop to wreak havoc. In the early days of Angela’s residence at 96 Columbia Rd, before she began making perfume, she restored antique furniture and sold homemade pot-pourri. With the flower market on her doorstep she had unbridled access to an array of flowers from every corner of the globe. One Sunday, she purchased a proliferation of peonies and hung them in her workshop, on racks of bamboo branches suspended from the ceiling. The next morning, she opened the door to a huge cloud of fluttering moths. The peonies came from western North Africa, wherein the moths had laid their eggs! During transit the larvae ate the flowers, ready to burst out of their chrysalises in Angela’s workshop!
Artemesia one of the herbal ingredients
Anyone who has experienced the destruction inflicted by moths is on their guard forever after. Watching that beloved cashmere slowly perforated by tiny winged terminators, teaches you to assemble your armoury. With her usual self-reliance and resourcefulness, Angela set about researching how different countries historically used herbs and spices to ward off moths and other insects. Each culture used what was available to them from their native lands but Angela, with access to anything she wanted, decided to create a new recipe incorporating the major recurring ingredients – capitalising on the wisdom of our ancestors across the globe. Since lavender and mint were prominent scents in her mixture, she decided to name them French Moth Herbs. As well as those two ingredients, her formula also includes sweet woodruff, rosemary. tansy, southern wood, rue and penny royal.
Sweet Woodruff another ingredient
Angela approached the creation of the Moth Herbs in the same way as her pot-pourri – using the actual herb plants themselves, infusing and strengthening the odour with their own essential oils and presenting them in a cloth sachet. She realised that the oils would work well in spray form if used in conjunction with the herbs. Thus, her range of French Moth Herbs was born and it has been a best seller since 1991, inspiring many loyal adherents who return time and again.
....and as the label says "just a touch of clove"
Many a beloved cashmere has been saved ever since.
[Originally published on 24/04/19 & 21/3/21]
