5 Homemade Hand Sanitizer Recipes that work

Your local store might be out of stock. Or maybe you just want to make a non-toxic homemade hand sanitizer for you and your family.

With these easy to follow tutorials you can make hand sanitizer at home with just a few simple ingredients.

Contents hide

1 Are Hand Sanitizers Effective?

2 Homemade Hand Sanitizer Recipes

When it comes to keeping your hands clean and help ward off germs, washing your hands is still best.

The CDC recommends that you wash your hands with water and soap for at least 20 seconds (yep, you read that right).

But when you can’t get to a sink right away, it’s good to have a bottle of hand sanitizer in your purse, car or backpack.

During a flu outbreak or pandemic, however, there might be a sudden shortage of these types of essential products.

In thoses cases it’s good to have a trust-worthy DIY tutorial on stand-by for when you’ll need to get crafty and make your own.

When you follow these DIY recipes you also know exactly what ingredients go into your hand sanitizer. A product that you and your family might use on a daily basis.

And by making it yourself you can get frugal and save some money along the way!

Are Hand Sanitizers Effective?

Soap and water are still more effective at removing certain kinds of germs from your hands.

But if hand washing is not immediately available to you, hand sanitizer is recommended by the Centre of Disease Control and the World Health Organization as the next best thing.

Not all hand sanitizer are created equally though. Both brands sold in stores and diy recipes you can find online, use different ingredients and measurements for their formulations.

For a hand sanitizer to work, it needs to have at least 60 % alcohol content.

If you’ve ever made your own beauty products or you’re a natural beauty buff, you’ve probably always heard that alcohol is a skincare ingredient to avoid.

But when it comes to fighting bacteria and germs, alcohol-based hand rubs are a lot more effective than ones that use essential oils or witch hazel as their sanitizing ingredient.

Alcohol comes in different varieties and not all are created the same.

Your mind probably goes straight to rubbing alcohol, also known as isopropyl aclohol or isopropanol.

The benefit of rubbing alcohol is that it’s a cheap ingredient and readily available.

But there are also other types of alcohol, such as ethanol (or ethyl alcohol). Vodka for example contains ethanol. You just need high proof vodka and you can start making your own hand sanitizer.

Another option is high proof grain alcohol, such as Everclear. If this available for purchase where you live.

The recipes below are all effective hand sanitizers you can use when hand washing isn’t an immediate option.

They use their own choice of alcohol, moisturizing agent and additions, but in the end they all contain 60 % alcohol and are considered a safe alternative according to CDC guidelines.

Homemade Hand Sanitizer Recipes

If hand washing isn't an immediately available option, you can use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer to kill most of the bacteria until you get near a sink with soap and water.

And if your local store is out of hand sanitizer, you can easily make your own at home.

These DIY hand sanitizer recipes all follow CDC guidelines and are made with only a few accessible, household ingredients.

Photo Credit: alifeadjacent.com

DIY Hand Sanitizer with Vodka (2 Ways: Spray or Gel)

This tutorial uses high proof vodka for the alcohol portion of these hand sanitizers. That way you don't have to deal with the unpleasant scent of rubbing alcohol.

Choose between an easy gel formula with aloe vera or a spray version if you prefer.