"I Found a Tick on My Daughter After Our Hike. That Was the Last Time I Left the House Without These."

Sarah M. has been leading family hiking groups in the Colorado Rockies for eleven years. She knows every trail, every weather pattern, and every hazard her members might face. Last September, she encountered one she almost missed entirely.
"We'd done a six-mile loop in the foothills — nothing technical, a trail I've done probably two hundred times," she told us. "My daughter was with me, she's seven. When we got back to the car I was doing the usual tick check and I found one on the back of her knee. It hadn't attached yet, but it was there."
Sarah had used DEET spray on herself. She hadn't used it on her daughter. "She hates the smell. She always has. I'd tried every spray on the market and she'd either refuse to put it on or wipe it off the second I turned around. I'd basically given up on chemical repellents for her and just relied on the tick check at the end. That day I realised that wasn't good enough."

The 48-hour window for Lyme disease transmission is well known to anyone who spends time outdoors. What is less well known is how quickly that window can close — and how easily a tick can be missed on a child, particularly in the hairline, behind the knees, or in the folds of the skin where they tend to migrate.
Sarah spent that evening doing what most parents in her position do: searching for a solution that would actually work on a child who refused sprays.

The Discovery

"I found TrailPatch through another AOA member — she'd posted about it in the members' forum. I was sceptical. I'd tried essential oil sprays before and they'd either smelled terrible or worn off in an hour. But the format was different. It's a sticker. It goes on clothing, not skin. And the designs — my daughter saw them and immediately wanted to put them on herself."
That detail — a child who wants to wear her tick repellent — turned out to be the thing that changed everything.

"I found TrailPatch through another AOA member — she'd posted about it in the members' forum. I was sceptical. I'd tried essential oil sprays before and they'd either smelled terrible or worn off in an hour. But the format was different. It's a sticker. It goes on clothing, not skin. And the designs — my daughter saw them and immediately wanted to put them on herself."

That detail — a child who wants to wear her tick repellent — turned out to be the thing that changed everything.

TrailPatch is made by NatPat, an Australian outdoor health company that has been producing natural repellent stickers since 2018. The active ingredients are a blend of four essential oils — Geranium, Peppermint, Thyme, and Cedarwood — each with documented repellent activity against ticks. What makes the format work is NatPat's proprietary AromaWeave™ technology: biodegradable bamboo fibres that microencapsulate the essential oils and release them slowly and consistently over up to 8 hours, rather than evaporating quickly the way a spray does.

"The first time we used them was on a trail in Rocky Mountain National Park. My daughter picked the designs herself — she chose the ones with the little explorer characters. She stuck them on her socks and her shirt before we even got out of the car. I didn't have to ask her once."

TrailPatch is made by NatPat, an Australian outdoor health company that has been producing natural repellent stickers since 2018. The active ingredients are a blend of four essential oils — Geranium, Peppermint, Thyme, and Cedarwood — each with documented repellent activity against ticks. What makes the format work is NatPat's proprietary AromaWeave™ technology: biodegradable bamboo fibres that microencapsulate the essential oils and release them slowly and consistently over up to 8 hours, rather than evaporating quickly the way a spray does.
"The first time we used them was on a trail in Rocky Mountain National Park. My daughter picked the designs herself — she chose the ones with the little explorer characters. She stuck them on her socks and her shirt before we even got out of the car. I didn't have to ask her once."

Why the AOA Is Sharing This

When Sarah's post in the AOA members' forum generated over 200 responses in 48 hours — most of them parents describing the same problem — we decided to look into TrailPatch properly.
We reviewed the ingredient safety data, the mechanism of action, and feedback from AOA members across 14 states who had been using TrailPatch over the past two seasons. The results were consistent enough that we felt it was our responsibility to share them with the broader membership.

How AromaWeave™ Technology Works

The key difference between TrailPatch and an essential oil spray is not the ingredients — it is the delivery system. When you spray essential oils directly onto skin or clothing, the volatile compounds evaporate within 30–90 minutes, leaving no protection. AromaWeave™ solves this by microencapsulating the oils inside biodegradable bamboo nanofibres.

NatPat's AromaWeave® Technology — four-layer construction for consistent, sustained citronella release.

The result is a consistent, controlled release of the active oils over up to 8 hours — the same duration as a full day on the trail. The sticker goes on clothing (socks, trouser cuffs, hat brim, shirt collar), not on skin, so there is no dermal absorption of any kind.

What AOA Members Are Saying

What 2,000,000+ Families Are Saying

Sarah's Update

We checked back with Sarah six months after her initial post. She now carries TrailPatch for every group she leads and recommends it to every family member who joins her hikes.

"My daughter asks for them now. She has a favourite design — the little explorer with the backpack. She puts them on herself before we leave the house. I haven't had to do a single argument about tick spray since we switched."

She paused. "I still do the tick check at the end. Old habits. But it's been two seasons and we haven't found one since."