Making homemade hand sanitizer
Cold and flu season is in full swing, and with H1N1 running around all over the place, taking a few extra precautions to keep germs at bay is never a bad thing. I’m not saying you need to bathe yourself and your kids in hand sanitizer every few minutes. Washing your hands with soap and water is still the best way to get rid of germs. But after an outing where you come into contact with a lot of germs (like the grocery store, the gas pump, public bathrooms) it’s a good idea to kill off some of those foreign attackers when you don’t have access to a sink and soap. And when you have an 11 month old sitting in the grocery cart who insists on putting as much of the cart in her mouth as possible, you like having a little piece of mind that your daughter isn’t going to break out in hives from all the germs at any moment.
There are many, many hand sanitizing products on the market, but I’ve found that you can make your own hand sanitizer for a fraction of the cost. Most products you buy are made with an alcohol base but as the green craze continues, more natural products made with essential oils are finding their way to the market. If you elect for an alcohol based product, make sure it has an alcohol concentration of at least 60 percent so that it kills most harmful bacteria and viruses. Check those labels on your hand sanitizer products so you know they are actually getting the job done and not just smearing the germs around.
Essential oils have been used for thousands of years to combat disease and you may already have all of the oils in your home that are necessary to make your own hand sanitizer. Using essential oils with disinfectant, antiseptic and antiviral properties will allow you to create a homemade hand sanitizer with no alcohol at all.
Essential Oils to Use
Cedarwood, lavender, lemon, lemon grass, myrrh, neroli, patchouli, peppermint, rose, sandalwood, tea tree, thyme and ylang-ylang essential oils all have antiseptic properties.
Clove, niaouli and pine oils have both disinfectant and antiseptic properties.
Tea tree oil is the most powerful of these essential oils and has antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial properties–making it the recommended essential oil to use in the following recipes. But it should not be used on infants or pregnant /nursing women. Adding more tea tree oil to any recipe will make the hand sanitizer more effective but the smell can be overwhelming. View the American Society for Microbiology’s study about TTO for further information about its effectiveness. A few drops of essential oils like basil, rosemary, rose, lavender, lemon or geranium will lighten and balance the aroma.
Always be careful with essential oils and consult an herbalist before using if you have any current health conditions. As mentioned, some oils (like tea tree, cedar wood and hyssop) are not suitable for children or pregnant and nursing women.
In the recipes below, you can mix oils to suit you tastes or just use one type of oil but their effectiveness will be reduces versus using tea tree oil. One essential oil blend option which is safe for families is a combination of lavender and pine. This will create a disinfectant, antiseptic hand sanitizer with calming effects. Add a little citrus or rosemary to enhance and round out the aroma.
Aloe vera gel is in ingredient in all of these recipes and I just wanted to mention that this means pure aloe vera gel without the coloring, flavoring and so on. It’s not the same as juice. It should say “100% aloe vera gel” somewhere on the bottle. If it doesn’t, it’s the wrong stuff.
If you have trouble finding any of these ingredients in your local stores, try online sources. I’ll be happy to give you a few sites myself.
So here’s the homemade hand sanitizer recipes with and without alcohol. Mixing up a batch of hand sanitizer only takes a few minutes but there’s often a question of what you have available in the house. You’ll probably want to do the mixing in a glass bowl (plastic may take on the aroma of the essential oils and metal may react with the ingredients) but you can also just pour the ingredients directly into a bottle if you prefer. Either way, a funnel is going to be useful. Add the ingredients together in your mixing vessel, then shake or stir to combine. Fill the mixture into hand sanitizer and other small bottles you’ve washed out to keep those landfills empty. Some more liquid recipes may need to be shaken before use to distribute the oils.
Alcohol Free Hand Sanitizer Gel
- 1 cup pure aloe vera gel
- 1-2 teaspoons of witch hazel (add until the desired consistency is reached)
- 8 drops of essential oils (as listed above)
Mostly Alcohol Free Hand Sanitizer Gel
- 2 cups pure aloe vera gel
- 2 tablespoons 90% SD40 alcohol (perfumer’s alcohol if you can get it)
- 2-3 teaspoons essential oils (as listed above)
Alcohol-based Hand Sanitizer
- 1/4 cup pure aloe vera gel
- 1/4 cup grain alcohol or vodka
- 10 drops essential oils (as listed above)
interesting…like the one with the grain alcohol or vodka. whoa
Yeah I never really thought about using vodka or strong alcohol for a hand sanitizer but it makes sense…I mean people use it to sterilize wounds when they’ve got nothing else so why not this? Of course, if you still have the smell of vodka strongly lingering in your hand sanitizer, people might start thinking you’re a drunk. But at least your hands will be germ free
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I will definitely try the alcohol free version, because my kids and I always have little boo boos and that alcohol based stuff stings so bad!
Using those 3 recipes won’t kill any bacterias; running water would do better.
For example, the alcohol version has 1/4 cup of grain alcohol or vodka. This is likely to have 40% alcohol in it, which makes you final product less than 20% alcohol, a lot less than the 70% used in hospitals and 62% used in Purell and others.
You can use isopropyl alcohol 90% or 100% or ethanol (as close to 96% as possible) and make sure the final product has AT LEAST 60% of alcohol. Go safe and use 2/3 alcohol 1/3 moisturizer (glycerine and aloe are a good choice).
For the other ones, essential oils won’t kill bacterias or viruses. A few will, but not all will, so be more specific. If you really want to be safe and alcohol-free, chloride hand sanitizers are another safe solution but should be bought from the store, not homemade.
It should be noted that even with 70% alcohol no product will kill all the germs. Most bacterias are fairly easy to kill with alcohol, but viruses are another story and against the flu, only chloride solutions will be really effective. Also, chlorstridium difficile is somewhat resistant to alcohol-based sanitizers.
Thanks for your comment, Jingolo. As noted, alcohol-based hand-sanitizers should be at least 60% alcohol. But if tea tree oil (TTO) is added, as is described as the best essential oil for use in these recipes, the antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial of the sanitizer is boosted. But because TTO is a very overwhelming essential oil, it must be diluted before being applied to the skin. See the American Society for Microbiology’s study about TTO for further information about its effectiveness.
Other weaker essential oils have been included for those with sensitive skin, who are pregnant, for children and so on. It is true they will not be as effective as the solutions including TTO.
I knew that about tea tree oil being anti-fungal and antibacterial, but I had no idea about those other oils having those properties. Great information. By the way, I like your theme. I’ve used it on one of my blogs.
.-= Amy@homemade bath products´s last blog ..Funky Monkey Soap (Kitchen Smell Dispel) =-.