I'm writing this review to save potential buyers the frustration that will likely appear after this product fails at its intended purpose.
As most of you reading the reviews of this product, I am in the middle of an epic battle to save my plants (especially my prized moonflower vines) from an infestation of aphids, whiteflies, and one other as-yet unidentified but equally detrimental pest without using synthetic chemicals that could be harmful to humans, pets, or the environment as a whole. On numerous gardening forums I have read about neem oil and its insecticidal and fungicidal properties and overall seemed like a great fit for my purposes. Hence my trip to amazon and the eventual purchase of this product.
To be honest, I feel like the product description is highly misleading and if I would have known what was actually contained in it I would not have purchased in the first place. The neem in this product is "clarified hydrophobic extract of neem oil". Upon a quick google search, I was disappointed to learn that this is the ingredient left over after the process of extracting the neem oil from the seeds using alcohol and the ingredient that makes neem oil effective, azadirachtin, is also removed during this process. Neem has many different compounds not including azadirachtin and whatever those are is what is inside this product. The successes that have been achieved by the other reviewers are likely to have been caused by the other active ingredient, pyrethrins, and not the neem byproduct.
After further research, I have also found that any other process besides cold pressing breaks down the active ingredient in neem which also lessens its effectiveness. Luckily I was able to find 100% cold pressed neem oil here on amazon that I will use to make my own spray using 1-2% neem oil to water ratio and add a couple drops of Dr. Bronner's plain castille soap as the needed emulsifier (since water and oil do not mix without help).
Good luck out there and keep fighting the good fight!
