How to make a Hand Sanitiser
Washing and sanitising your hands has never been more important, whilst personal hygiene practices are top of the list in keeping yourself safe, it is not always practical to wash you hands when out and about. We have you covered with options from the beginner to the advanced DIYer.
What is a Hand Sanitiser?
A hand sanitiser is product designed to sanitise your hands and to remove/kill 99.9% of the micro-organisms. The usual base of a sanitiser will usually be denatured ethanol or isopropyl alcohol. Denatured ethanol and Isopropyl alcohol can come in different strengths, but for the purpose of hand sanitiser you want to purchase these products as the highest possible %. You can also find alcohol-free versions available as well.
PureNature’s Denatured Ethanol – 99.85%
PureNature’s Isopropyl Alcohol – 99.97%
This can be diluted to make a 60% - 70% (hospital grade) solution. Eg. 70grams isopropyl/ethanol 30grams water. Whilst this will work it will be very drying on the hands, this is where we can put our DIY skills to use and add some extra’s to make it gentler.
Thickeners and gums can be used to “gel” the formula butt this is harder to do, and we will get it to that further below.
Two Easy Hand Sanitizer Recipes
This recipe is based on making 100g, you can scale up if need be, this is an easy solution for making for the household.
Hand Sanitizer with Aloe Vera Gel 100g |
Hand Sanitizer Spray with Aloe Vera Juice 100g |
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70g |
70g |
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25.6g |
3g |
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2g |
Distilled Water |
24.6g |
|
0.4g |
2g |
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Approx 7 drops |
0.4g |
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Combine Iso/Ethanol and Fragrance in one beaker and mix well. Combine Aloe Vera Gel - Clear and Glycerine in another beaker, and mix well. Pour the iso/alcohol and fragrance beaker into the Aloe Vera and Glycerine beaker whilst stirring. Bottle and label well. |
Combine the Iso/Ethanol and Fragrance in one beaker and mix well. Combine Aloe Vera Juice, Water and Glycerine in another beaker, and mix well. Pour the iso/alcohol and fragrance beaker into the Aloe Vera and Glycerine beaker whilst stirring. Bottle and label well. |
Hand Santitizer Extra’s
There are a lot of “extra” ingredients you can pop into your hand sanitizer whether using a base or formulating from scratch to make it gentler on the hands. Some ingredient to play with:
Glycerin, Propanediol, Vitamin E, Provitamin B5, Aloe Vera, Allantoin, Extracts, sprinkle of mica for colour.
Fragrances/Essential Oils – used for smell, yes essential oils do have antimicrobial properties but not at this diluted rate. Citrus Essential oils can be phototoxic so best to stay away from these.
Hand Sanitizier Recipes for Manufacturing
If you are manufacturing hand sanitizer or want to make a “gel” sanitizer check out this awesome resource from the Institute of Personal Care Sciences – Belinda covers even more information in her blog around hand sanitizers as well as sharing formulas and video’s for gels and hand washes.
https://personalcarescience.com.au/n/HandSanitizerFormulas-499-68/