Is hand sanitizer sold out everywhere? I know it is here, amongst many other things! The good news is that hand sanitizer can be made at home very easily with common household items! Not only is homemade sanitizer just as effective as the brands in stores, but you also get to choose what to include in the formula!

The main ingredient in this hand sanitizer recipe is alcohol (Just like the majority of store-bought brands), which needs to comprise at least 60% of the product in order to be an effective disinfectant. The recipe calls for 99% isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) or ethanol (grain alcohol, most commonly available at 90%-95%). Please don't use any other types of alcohol (Such as methanol or butanol), as they are toxic. Also, if you use a product that contains a lower percentage of alcohol (60-70% alcohol) then you need to increase the amount of alcohol in the recipe or it won't be as effective. Ideally, you want to use alcohol that is 90% or higher for the best results!

Other ingredients required, or optional additions include aloe vera gel which is essentially the base to hold the alcohol in a gel-like formula very similar to what you would most commonly buy in stores. Aloe Vera also helps prevent skin from drying out due to the alcohol content. Optional ingredients include things such as essential oils, which not only can make your homemade sanitizer smell good, but many essential oils have antimicrobial properties that can further assist in protecting you from harmful germs/bacteria! Tea tree oil is commonly used, because of it’s pleasant scent and antimicrobial properties. However, when adding any essential oils it is important to remember more is not always better! Only a couple of drops will be more than enough, as adding too much could potentially cause skin irritation. Other commonly used essential oils with antimicrobial properties include clove and thyme oil. To counteract the potential irritation these antimicrobial oils may cause, essential oils such as lavender or chamomile could be used to soothe your skin combined with the aloe vera. An additional ingredient that can be added to improve your DIY sanitizer even further is a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. However, hydrogen peroxide is used to inactivate contaminating bacterial spores in the DIY solution and is not an active substance for hand antisepsis. These are optional additions to create your homemade sanitizer, but for the sake of simplicity the recipe provided does not include hydrogen peroxide, and essential oils are also optional. The most important ingredient here is alcohol (Preferably 90% or higher). The alcohol is the active ingredient that actually sanitizes your hands. All of the additions are optional, and can just form a sanitizer to your personal preference.

 What You'll Need

Equipment / Tools -

Bowl and spoon

  Funnel

Bottle with a pump dispenser

Materials -

2/3 cup 90% or higher percent rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) or ethanol

1/3 cup aloe vera gel

8 to 10 drops of desired essential oils (optional)

 After obtaining all the supplies needed, the hard part is done! As actually making the sanitizer is extremely simple! Just mix the ingredients together and then use the funnel to pour the mixture into the bottle(s). Screw the pump back onto the bottle and you have your very own DIY hand sanitizer that will work just as well as brands most commonly found in stores!

 If aloe vera gel cannot be found, it can be replaced with glycerin or hand lotion which both have similar properties to prevent the alcohol from drying your skin out. However, it's still important to keep the alcohol in the final product at least 60% for the sanitizer to be truly effective (60% is the strength recommended by the CDC). This is why using 90% alcohol or higher is very important, as other ingredients are added, the percentage of alcohol in the mixture decreases. If you cannot find 90-99% alcohol, a sanitizer still could be made although it would essentially be pure 60-70% alcohol only, with nothing more than a couple of drops of your desired essential oil added. This method will sanitize your hands, but will not look or feel like a typical hand sanitizer. It is essentially just using isopropyl alcohol to rinse hands, while effectively disinfecting, will also cause your skin to become very dry. This method is not recommended, but if other ingredients cannot be found, this will effectively sanitize your hands, as long as the alcohol content exceeds 60%!

 Alcohol dries the skin and strips natural protective oils. It’s a good idea if possible to use a good lotion to protect your skin after applying hand sanitizer (Check out 11 Best Hand Creams). We here at Evergreen Cleaning Company would recommend using a cream or lotion that is “Eco-Friendly” that contains no potentially harmful ingredients. A wonderful resource for learning what is actually in not only your lotion/hand creams but nearly all cosmetics is the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep. The site analyzes thousands of cosmetic products of all kinds and gives them simple to understand A to F grading system based on the chemicals in each product. It is a big misconception that “Eco-Friendly” products are less effective, as the majority of products including cleaning solutions are just as effective as traditional products many of which contain potentially harmful chemicals! For a list of the highest-rated hand creams visit EWG’s Skin Deep for the best and most accurate information! Using a lotion/hand cream after sanitizing shouldn’t be overlooked. As damaged skin can have tiny cracks that trap bacteria and viruses which make them harder to remove while washing hands and sanitizing. If you have sensitive skin especially, try to keep the amount of alcohol in hand sanitizer around 60-70% (as in this recipe) as a higher concentration of alcohol may cause skin irritation. The CDC states that any sanitizer with an alcohol content of at least 60% is sufficient to thoroughly kill 99.9% of germs/bacteria. Higher concentrations of alcohol will likely not provide any benefits but cause even more skin dryness.

While we know it’s difficult to find any hand sanitizer in stores right now due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19), we hope this guide can help you create a DIY hand sanitizer that works just as well as any store-bought sanitizer. Even if you can’t obtain all of the ingredients, finding some 60-70% rubbing alcohol shouldn’t be a problem and using that directly on your hands, will also sanitize them thoroughly and would be better than nothing, although not recommended if at all possible.

Also, DO NOT use liquor such as Vodka as a hand sanitizer. The alcohol content of 40% is not enough to properly sanitize. However, due to the shortage of hand sanitizers, Distillers are creating hand sanitizer with their in-house alcohol. Some may be wondering why standard Vodka isn’t an effective sanitizer, while the distilling companies who make vodka are helping their communities by adjusting their typical distillation process to produce a final product with a higher alcohol content to be used as hand sanitizer, but NOT to drink! They do this as described by a local distiller “Once the grain has been fermented into 12% alcohol, it's put into a still (basically a giant pot) where it's cooked until it becomes a high-proof, 96% pure alcohol. This neutral grain spirit is the base for vodka (and other liquors) but it's also the base for hand sanitizer. In fact, you could use this straight alcohol as a sanitizer, although most companies will add (Aloe Vera) or glycerin to make it thicker and less harsh on human skin.”

Your local distillery may be producing hand sanitizer by altering their processes to create a higher alcohol content, but don’t confuse that with any alcohol you can purchase at the store as no liquor will be an effective hand sanitizer!

It’s a struggle to get your hands on a single bottle of hand sanitizer in stores right now, but with just a few ingredients you can make your very own at home in less than 10 minutes! We hope this guide was useful, and that many people will create their own homemade hand sanitizer during these tough times, where it is difficult to even find basic necessities in stores!

 Do you have your own DIY hand sanitizer recipe? Or any suggestions on how to improve this formula? If so we would love to hear in the comments below!

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