When you want to kill germs and bacteria around your house and on your hands, why would you use a store-bought product that contains toxins or other harmful ingredients? It kind of defeats the purpose, replacing one evil with another. You can create your own eco-friendly and safe sanitizing alternatives at home.
Here are some DIY home and hand sanitizers that are effective and easy, and inexpensive to make at home.
If you’re unable to find hand sanitizer in stores or want to avoid the general public here are some effective homemade sanitizer recipes you can make!Click To TweetDIY disinfecting wipes without alcohol
Rather than buy a tub of sanitizing wipes at the store, you can make your own that are all-natural and much safer for the environment and your home.
First, you’ll need to create the sanitizing liquid in a large bowl. The ingredients you’ll need to combine first are one-fourth cup water, one-fourth cup pure Aloe Vera gel, one-fourth cup witch hazel, and one tablespoon apple cider vinegar. It is optional, but you can also add one tablespoon of vegetable glycerin to lessen dry skin.
Finally, you’ll add essential oils, which are the true germ and bacteria killers. All essential oils have sanitizing properties, so you can choose your favorites.
The best and most common choices are tea tree oil, peppermint oil, mint, thyme, cinnamon, and lavender. You can experiment to create a mixture that smells best to you. The most common combination is tea tree and peppermint. Add ten drops of each to the mixture.
Then, put a thick stack of paper towels into the bowl. When they’re wet (do not leave them in for a long time), put them into an empty baby wipes container for easy access and storage.
Homemade hand sanitizer with aloe vera
It’s very easy to create your own hand sanitizing gel. All you need to do is mix one cup of pure Aloe Vera gel, one to two teaspoons of witch hazel, and one-fourth teaspoon of tea tree oil.
Since tea tree oil has a powerful scent, if you find it unpleasant, you can add a couple of drops of another essential oil that you like, such as lavender, rosemary, lemon, rose, or basil.
When you’re finished, you can use a funnel to put the mixture into whatever storage container you like, such as a small pump bottle. Shake the bottle to make sure everything is mixed well together.
When used often, this gel can be drying to your hands. Be cautious if you have sensitive skin, and use lotion to keep your skin hydrated.
Homemade disinfectant spray for flu and other germs
There are many different recipes for all-purpose home sanitizing sprays. Some use essential oils, and others use natural products like vinegar.
A simple way to create a sanitizing solution is to combine equal parts of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle. It’s a very effective germ and bacteria killer.
Another spray that uses vinegar requires one-fourth to one-half cup of white or apple cider vinegar for every cup of water. You can also add a few drops of pleasant-smelling essential oil. Just combine in a spray bottle, and you’re all set to disinfect.
This is very helpful, thanks for sharing! I like the idea of making your own hand sanitizers, I can’t stand the way most smell like vodka. It is very off-putting and it would be awesome to add nice scents.
I’m probably weird but I kind of like the antiseptic type smell. It makes me feel like the hand sanitizer might actually kill something lol.
When hand sanitizing products are hard to find, it’s nice to now that you can make your own! Thanks for these ideas!
Yes, it was crazy when you couldn’t buy hand sanitizer
Thanks so much for this. Use these all the time and a money saver to make your own.
Making homemade sanitizers is def a money saver!
Yeah, I remember when they sent out warnings about making homemade sanitizers when we really needed them. Sometimes I think some of the warnings are so we buy products which could be just as harmful. Thanks for the recipe, I’ll use it and reuse the old bottles.
It was crazy when we couldn’t buy any hand sanitizer – worse when it was toilet paper
I like the idea of putting the soaked towels in an empty baby wipe container.
Reusing baby wipe containers for hand sanitizing wipes makes me happy. The containers are so good. I hate throwing them away.
it’s so weird how no one used hand sanitizer until the pandemic, we always had some for flu season!
We were one of the rare ones and always had some hand sanitizer since my wife is a semi-germophobe
This is so helpful! There’s a lot of us and we use alot of sanitizer and disinfectant. Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome! We have hand sanitizer in almost every room here lol.
For years, I have been a big salt, baking soda, vinegar, and now apple cider vinegar ingredients user! They are cheap to buy and they work when used correctly. Plus they are safer than the cleaning products I used to buy. It’s great to know how to make your own stuff that you use and need!
Thank you for sharing!
All of those are great for cleaning and disinfecting!
Didn’t realize that all essential oils have sanitizing properties..
Some essential oils are def better than others for hand sanitizers like tea tree oil.
( How to Make Homemade Sanitizers for Your Hands and Home) This is a really good idea to make this at home. Would probably save you some money making it yourself.
It def can save you money making your own hand sanitizer
This is good information and I think we are going to be needing it for a lot longer. I am a fan of the spray will be making that. I like tea tree oil and use in in a lot of stuff. My hand soaps I always add some to them and other things.
That’s a good idea – to add essential oils to the soaps you already use. I never thought of that!
this is a lot of good information. I like making things for my home. And a lot of this stuff I have on hand. I will be making the Homemade disinfectant spray for sure
Awesome! I hope you try out some of these home sanitizers.
This is good to know. I rely on essential oils for a lot. I can’t stand the smell of tea tree oil, so I cover it up with patchouli. Unfortunately, I believe that sanitizers and masks will become as common to carry now as keys and a wallet. So much for the “new normal”! (Can we please go back a few decades? Pretty please?)
I don’t mind it too much! My wife was a fan of hand sanitizer before it was popular lol.
I’ll have to try this.
You should – making homemade hand sanitizers is actually kind of fun!
This is so useful because hand sanitizer isn’t always easy to find. Thank you for sharing.
Yes – it can be difficult to find during those crazy times and making sanitizer homemade is better because you get to control everything that goes into it.
Thanks for sharing these with us. It’s good to be able to know how to make these on your own.
Yes, always good to know how to make sanitizer in case we have another pandemic.
Thank you for sharing this. This is a great life hack.
It’s nice being able to make hand sanitizer in a pinch