My inner clean freak is conflicted. You see, I love having clean hands (especially during cold & flu season), but I hate hand sanitizer. It is seriously gross. Over scented, weirdly goopy, and generally awful. I only use it when it is absolutely the only option, and I hate every second of it when I do. So I thought I’d improve on it.
This hand sanitizer lotion has a pleasing texture, moisturizes your skin, and zaps germs (though likely not with a bazooka like the goo stuff you can buy). It comes together quickly, and doesn’t leave your hands smelling like a demented baby wipe for hours on end. I keep a small squeeze bottle of it in my purse now, and it’s awesome.
The germ zapping powers come from a bit of rubbing alcohol, some anti-bacterial/viral essential oils (tea tree, lavender, and rosemary), and some raw honey. After that, it’s really just normal lotion.
Given that this recipe is ineffective, I no longer recommend making it.
Hand Sanitizer Lotion
7g Emulsimulse/Ritamulse (or other emulsifying wax)
18g grapeseed oil60g water
2g glycerin
3g raw honey
10g rubbing alcohol5 drops tea tree essential oil
8 drops lavender essential oil
3 drops rosemary essential oilCombine the emulsifying wax and grapeseed oil in a small saucepan and melt over medium heat.
While the oils melt, combine the water and glycerin in a small bowl. Warm in the microwave for 20 seconds and stir to combine. Combine the raw honey and alcohol in another dish and stir to combine.
Once the oils have melted, add the water mixture to the pan and heat through. Remove from heat and whisk constantly as the mixture cools and thickens into a nice lotion.
Whisk in the rubbing alcohol and raw honey. We’re doing this now so the heat doesn’t evaporate off all the alcohol and spoil the honey.
Whisk in the essential oils. Decant into a lotion bottle and enjoy!
It has come to my attention that this formulation is not going to be terribly effective at sanitizing due to the low concentrations of the “sanitizing” ingredients—thanks to Dawn & C for science-ing that up for me. You can try inverting the amounts of water and rubbing alcohol for a more effective product, though I’m not sure how the emulsion will hold at that point.
I am just amazed at how your creative mind works!
I have to collect the ingredients as I can afford them, so it may be awhile, but I do want to this. Working in the hospital, I had to use these awful things and I hated them.
One thing; have you researched the harmful effects of microwaves?
There are many opinions, but I believe they destroy the benefits of foods and even water (not to mention the effects on our bodies), so I use the oven or a “water bath” to warm things.
I am no scientist, but I know that microwave is bad if you are using plastic dishes in it. Heat is going to destroy benefits of food anyway, so that doesn’t matter, if you use micro or water bath. I use microwave only to warm my food, but when I’m making cosmetic I always melt or heat everything in little kettle or in water bath.
It’s amazing how long it took us to catch on to hot plastic + food = bad… especially when that food is quite acidic, like tomato based sauces. My parents have several older plastic leftovers containers that are totally pockmarked from years of storing tomatoes—yuck!
How did you determine your recipe was ineffective?
The alcohol content is simply far too low to work—you can peruse the comments to learn more as some other readers set me straight!
Thanks, Paula 🙂 I have yet to find a reliable, reputable, peer-reviewed study on microwaves destroying benefits of food and water for reasons other than heat exposure (which is obviously not exclusive to microwaves). If you have one, I would love to see it, but until then, I shall file it away with other unsubstantiated claims 😛 Forever a skeptic, I suppose 😉
I’m no scientist, either, but I do know how microwaves were invented…and it’s not pretty. Our family watched a documentary on strange weapons that were developed during World War II, and guess what: microwaves were originally intended to be a weapon. Seriously.
The Japanese were toying with microwaves, but thankfully they didn’t have an opportunity to put them into use before the war ended.
Here’s how it was supposed to work: extremely potent levels of microwaves were to be broadcast on invading armies, and the enemy would basically melt away.
They tested it on animals…can you imagine? Melting rats? Uuugggghhh. So, in light of that information, I’m anti-microwave. I might be able to find the link to the documentary.
not to be difficult, but why something is developed does not have a direct relationship to how healthy it is. There’s a vast difference between “extremely potent microwaves” and the level used in a cooking oven. To be fair, even a regular oven would be nasty used as a weapon (if you could conceive of a large enough one), because creating heat within a body high enough to cook it will not be good.
The rats would not have melted.
If you go back to the development of many things, their original purposes may not be what their final use is, because either the original use didn’t work, or a new use was discovered (sometimes by making the attempt at the original use).
I tried for a while last night to find a study on the harm of microwaves, but could not find anything in reputable journals that supported the notion that they are intrinsically harmful.
I believe the Nazis did conceive of such an oven :/
One of my favourite “whoopsy” invention stories is the one of the origin of Viagra—which was developed as a heart medication with one rather, err, noticeable side effect. Ha!
yes, the Nazis did have ovens like that. They used it in some of their death camps as ways to murder people – literally baking them alive in a huge oven. So tragic. and so completely preventable.
🙁
Did you know that corn flakes were invented as part of an anti-masturbation regime? And yet we still feed them to children as breakfast food 😛 As Dawn said, reason for creation and end use do not necessarily have anything to do with one another. I mean… you can torch your hand on an open stove element, but that doesn’t mean the stove is going to slowly poison you.
Godwin’s law shouldn’t apply on a natural products blog…
Silly Putty was a failed experiment for artificial rubber.
Well, to be fair, Goodwin’s law does specify a comparison to Nazis… I went with an outright reference, which, in the context of WWII weapons, wasn’t entirely out of place, or meant to demean to significance of the reference. But yes, I would generally agree that war in general has very little place in my wonderful world of shea butter and body products. Happy thoughts and all that.
Apparently Post-It notes were inspired by a failed adhesive recipe.
The incubators that keep premature babies alive have a less than savoury history as well..they were developed by a man who displayed babies at World Fairs and the like. http://www.neonatology.org/pdf/7200377a.pdf
It’s interesting to see another side to that story—the version I read highlighted that he could not get funding from hospitals, so he set up at the World Fair and charged admission to pay for the treatments, which he provided free to families that needed them.
Marie, I just had a question about the emulsifying wax, can I use bees wax? None of the heath food stores up here have the other one you mention. Would I use the same amount?
THANKS!
Jenn
Sadly, swapping out emulsifying wax for anything other than an emulsifier (which beeswax isn’t, sadly) is like using a paint chip instead of an egg because they’re both yellow. You can pair beeswax with borax to make an emulsion, but then you can only do a 1:1 ratio of oils to water, which makes for a very greasy lotion (borax also generally gets lower safety rating than e-waxes).
Emulsifying wax isn’t just one ingredient, though—there are a lot of different types, made from different ingredients. All of these ingredients are usually derived from plants—mostly coconut & palm because they’re very cheap. If you can’t get emulsimulse look for polawax, emulsifying wax NF, and vegemulse (another name for emulsimulse). All will do the same thing. You likely won’t find them at a health food store, though—I’ve certainly never seen e-wax at one. Instead, check any local DIY/soaping stores, or just order some online, where it’s super easy to find (and generally far less expensive).
I feel the same way with these hand sanitizers – and actually scientists here in Finland are talking against them lately, especially in everyday use. Your version seems to be nice and milder option for them. I’ve been wondering for a long time now, what is that rubbing alcohol you use there? Where do you buy it and what is made for? I don’t think we have it here, at least I haven’t heard any Finnish soap makers who would use it. And I would like to try that,
against hand sanitizers made with alcohol??? or against antibacterial hand wash/rubs?
I am surprised about the alcohol ones, if that’s what you mean, because they do not create resistance like the antibacterial ones containing (usually) triclosan do. Alcohol is effective at concentrations over 66%, so this recipe wouldn’t compare to a commercial hand sanitizer.
Is it terrible that my most immediate objection is the scent? 😛 Obviously triclosan is dodgy as all get out, but I have yet to come across a hand sanitizer that wasn’t imbued with the most wretched scent blend imaginable.
I don’t like the scents of most the commercial stuff (for anything, actually), but the alcohol sanitisers don’t have triclosan. They work entirely differently. I’m not sure what else you would have to object to in an alcohol sanitiser other than the scent and/or the potentially drying effect.
The scent & the drying effect are pretty much it… and the texture 😛 The ones I’ve tried are sort of like runny snot. And yes, I do realize I sound rather prissy right now 😛
Doctors here recommend to use only soap and water for every day using. I might be little bit confused what is difference between hand sanitizer and antibacterial rub, because here we call them just “käsidesi”.
To try to explain in simple terms: a sanitizer that relies on alcohol as its effective ingredient (at or over 60%) works by destroying the outer “skin” of the bacteria, and killing them physically.
One that uses a chemical like triclosan works by “poisoning” the bacteria, and because it doesn’t kill them directly, some can survive and are less sensitive to the poison. Plus the triclosan is carcinogenic and nasty to humans.
Soap and water remove bacteria from the skin by washing them down the drain. The other two are options for when you don’t have soap and water available. Of the two non-soap-and-water, I would suggest alcohol-based, at a concentration of at least 60% alcohol, to be effectively anti-bacterial.
Great break-down, Dawn 🙂 Thanks!
Rubbing alcohol is generally quite concentrated (70–99%) isopropyl alcohol. It smells terrible and stings on open wounds, but is great at killing germs. According to Wikipedia it is also referred to as Surgical Spirit across the pond, so perhaps that’s closer to the term you’re familiar with? You just get it at the pharmacy, and it’s very common in medicine cabinets for cleaning cuts.
I need to check out next time I go to pharmacy. 🙂
🙂
Cool! I have a little spray hand sanitizer from a natural health food store that I love, and had been hoping to replicate when it ran out–it’s lasting FOREVER. It’s not drying like the alcohol based stuff, but I love the idea of only using one product to sanitize and moisturize. It has thyme and orange essential oils in it, I believe, and smells amazing. Can’t wait to make this!
OOh, I love the idea of a spray 😀 Especially since I got a few of those wee 5mL spray things from Saffire Blue… also, must try orange + thyme, it smells awesome!
Preservatives are needed in any product that has water in it to prevent bacteria and mold from growing in it. This is true even with all the wonderful properties of the essential oils. For your recipe, I would recommend Optiphen Plus, a water-soluble, paraben- and formaldehyde-free preservative. Grapeseed oil is anti-oxidant, but does not provide the needed protection from bacterial growth to serve as a preservative. I think this is a great recipe and I will try it, but I will definitely add a preservative.
ok, so commercial alcohol sanitizers containing at least 66% alcohol are effective in physically destroying the outer membrane of bacteria (whereas the ones that cause resistance work by “poisoning” them).
Teatree is effective against some bacteria (we included it in our test substances this year for antibacterial effect) but as far as I know, works chemically and not physically.
I’d have to do more reading to know if I would consider this a replacement for alcohol hand sanitizer (vs a pleasant hand cream)
I definitely did not intend for this to be a pre-surgery scrub-up, or something to use before going to see somebody who is immune compromised—the idea was that it would be a more gentle (and moisturizing) alternative to the store bought version. Perhaps the name is too strong for that—I was going for association, though it may be misleading. I’d love to read more about your tests about tea tree oil, they sound fascinating! I envy your access to proper testing facilities… though if you’re doing that at home, teach me your ways!
I’m not talking about pre-surgical scrub either. I’m talking about actually effective hand sanitiser, which is generally said to be effective at 60% alcohol.
Not testing at home, I’m a biologist that works as a technician at a university, and the students in the microbiology class did a set of tests to see how various antimicrobial products compared. They used things like Dettol, Pine-sol, tea tree oil (also big on the turpines), and other such products. IIRC, I think they looked at S. aureus, e. coli, and perhaps one other bacteria. (Staph. aureus is a common element of your skin flora). I would have to find the results to speak with confidence about the full outcomes, as I don’t generally tech for the micro class.
I’m not sure how “sciencey” you wanted me to get, but:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360273/
That’s some rather more “heavy” reading to wade through if you like, and there are a few other abstracts.
Thanks for this—I will have to read it when I’m not dashing off to work, and before my next attempt at a hand sanitizer of some sort 🙂
You’ve likely deduced by now that my thought process was “if lots is totally sanitizing, then less will be just less sanitizing” as opposed to totally ineffective. I imagine there is some sort of scale of effectiveness there, but considering there’s only about 7g of alcohol in this recipe (I used 70% isopropyl alcohol), I imagine I’ve slid far into “so much less effective it’s basically ineffective” territory.
btw, NOBODY scrubs up for surgery with an alcohol hand sanitizer of any kind….
That was supposed to be a bit hyperbolic… but only because they actually scrub something that looks to suds up in Greys Anatomy. Yet another reason I’m not a doctor 😛
My aversion to preservatives is one of the many reasons I don’t sell my products. It’s all about what you are personally comfortable with, so please add a preservative if you need to 🙂
I have the same aversion to preservatives which is why I, too, make all my own products and why I love and follow your blog! But, I don’t make lotions because they have water in them and have switched to creams and body butters. Other than soap, yucky things can grow in water-based products like lotions. I imagine if you are making small amounts for yourself for short-term use it may not be an issue.
Yucky things can grow in loads of things, including things that I eat, so I work in small batches and watch for the signs—and I’m not afraid to chuck something when it’s done 🙂 Yet another benefit of DIYing—I know that’s only about $0.10 of lotion that’s going down the drain, so it’s not heartbreaking like it would be if it was a $40 store bought creme!
I’m the same. I don’t necessarily have a HUGE aversion to preservatives, I figure to use 1-2% preservatives is small enough amount than having to worry about whether or not my product is contaminated. I used to worry about it so much but I think the percentage is small enough. However, whenever I can (99% of the time), I would make something without water. I’ve been making whipped body butters for the whole family (and friends) and really don’t miss the lotion-y feel of lotions 🙂
Before I figured out how to make lotions I used nothing but body butters, but there is just something about them that doesn’t work as well as lotion does on very parched skin for me. My guess is it’s something to do with instant hydration from the water combined with longer lasting hydration/moisture maintainance from the oils. I can actually apply body butter to my hands and have them still be rough, and then oily as well. Oh joy, eh?
would Fragrance oils work just as well in this as the essential oils or would it “lose something” by using the FO’s??
By the way..you are my creative, DIY hero! 🙂 LOVE EVERYTHING YOU DO!!!! THANK YOU!!
The essential oils I’ve chosen for this recipe have antibacterial and antiviral properties, but their FO imitators will not, so in this case, real is definitely best 🙂 Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!
awesome! thank you for clarifying that for me! 🙂 cant wait to make this!! 🙂
No worries 🙂
Thanks for sharing, this is beyond perfect. :]
My problem with conventional sanitizers/disinfectants is that they always dry out my skin. So I will definitely start to make my own sanitizer lotion from now on. Brilliant!!
♡ Dulce
Let me know how it goes for you! And remember—don’t use this lotion to scrub in for surgery 😉
ahaha. demented baby wipes! LOL You are hilarious! Love your descriptions of things you don’t like.
Thanks, Michelle 🙂 I will admit to being rather pleased with that analogy 😛
I think I’d go with a higher amount of alcohol, at least the 60% necessary to make it effective, and scent it with essential oils, and add aloe vera gel to counteract the drying effect of the alcohol. Not as stinky as the commercial versions, but more effective and less likely to create resistances than a lower alcohol version that uses antibacterials.
Thanks so much for chiming in with your scientific brilliance, Dawn 🙂 The reason I used less alcohol is because it was making the lotion go a bit… funny… (sort of aerated and odd compared to previous ones) and I was concerned about breaking the emulsion. I’d not thought about it potentially perpetuating resistances, though—do you have some sort of awesome resource where I can read more about that?
Well, since the alcohol is the effective bit of the commercial products (the non-triclosan ones), it seems important. I’d go look on PubMed for studies, although having just done so, it seems the jury is still out as to whether teatree causes resistance.
The alcohol will NOT create resistant bacteria, because it physically destroys the bacteria if you use it as you’re supposed to, at 60% alcohol, and with friction (rubbing your hands together as directed). It bursts the cell “skin”.
Chemical means of killing bacteria (triclosan and turpines, and such) are the ones that have the potential for resistance development.
As I say to my students, when we run a lab specifically to show how that happens, “you might become immune to a poison, but you don’t develop immunity to a stabbing”
I’d skip the lotiony bits, and go for a sanitizer, or skip the sanitizer and make a nice lotion. Most homemade sanitizers are alcohol and aloe vera, or the commercial ones sometimes use methylcellulose for thickening.
And no, I’m not talking about scrubbing in for surgery either. Ha. Ha.
Fantastic analogy 🙂
As many before me has commented, you need to up the amount of alcohol in that lotion to make it antibacterial. For all non americans/canadians, rubbing alcohol is also called isopropyl alcohol.
Honey in diluted form is not antibacterial, it’s only antibacterial in undiluted form. It’s more likely without heating it, it will cause some serious problem with bacterial growth in your lotion.
For an essential oil to become an effective antibactieral substance in a skin product it need to be in such a high concentration that it will make your skin irritated. Even if you have the toughest skin it will become too irritating.
not totally true re the essential oils, from what I was reading last night, nor about honey as far as I know, but I’m prepared to be challenged on that opinion, via some documents. 🙂
It would be awfully sad if it was true for essential oils, given a huge part of their appeal is their supposed potency at low concentrations.
I’m a certified aromatherapist and tea tree and lavender oils are the only essential oils that may be used neat on skin without irritation. Otherwise how high of a concentration you can go before skin irritation depends on the individual and the essential oil being used.
What are your thoughts on sensitization, Melissa? I have read tales of people becoming sensitized to lavender EO even though it is commonly said to be so gentle.
Firstly, I wanted to correct myself on my statement “tea tree and lavender oils are the only essential oils that may be used neat on skin without irritation” by saying that every individual is different and reactions are possible. Unfortunately not everything in aromatherapy is proven fact. There is a difference between sensitization and irritation. I would urge everyone who is interested in using essential oils to read the following report by Ron Guba : Toxicity Myths-The Actual Risks of Essential Oil Use.
http://www.agoraindex.org/Frag_Dem/toxicitymyths.html
About 3/4 through the report he discusses the difference between sensitization and irritation and the compounds found in the essential oils commonly responsible for each.
Myself I have never experienced or witnessed any sensitization due to the use of lavender oil.
A patch test is always advisable when in doubt. This can be done by preparing a 5% to 10% dilution of the essential oil in question in vegetable oil and applying a few drops to the inner forearm, covering with a bandage. Generally, any sensitization reaction will occur within 24 to 48 hours.
Thanks for the resource & the tips, Melissa 🙂
Thanks for chiming in, C. Do you have any sources for your claims regarding the honey and the essential oils?
Hi Marie,
I thought maybe a smidgen of Tea Tree would have done nicely.
On microwaves, radar was another Scottish invention (Watson Watt) and the magnetron was used in the transmitter.
They only discovered years later that the magnetron could be used to heat up stuff in a microwave. Answer! blame the Scots ;0)
Nice Post.
I will happily blame the Scots/take some minute amount of credit, haha!
Also… “Watson Watt”? Did his parents want him to be bullied in school? 😛
The Canadian traffic cop was not impressed!
Robert Watson-Watt received a speeding ticket in Canada when he was 64 years old. In his autobiography, The Pulse of Radar, he describes the experience. His wife is in the car, and she tries to pull the “don’t you know who you’re giving a ticket to?” trick on the policeman. Of course he doesn’t know Watson-Watt, nor, it turns out, does he even know what radar is (he only knows what his “electronic speedometer” reads out), and Watson-Watt receives a $12.50 (Canadian) dollar fine.
Ha, what a great story! I wonder if the people who invented the parking meter ever felt the same way?
Hi. First time reading your blog. Neem oil is a wonderful natural oil that is an antibacterial, antifungal and more. I use it in acne and psoriasis (type) Soap. I had already planned on using neem to make a hand sanitizer. We need to get rid of toxic chemicals used on our bodies. I make all my products with NATURAL plant based materials that are not synthetically manipulated or manufactured by man. Thank you for ur blog. God Bless
stay away from the foxglove and monkshood, and hemlock….. 😉 “natural” doesn’t, of course, mean “non-toxic” because there are some very nasty and very natural poisons and toxins.
I have not used neem, but I have heard it has quite a …”strong” smell. Is it one of those things you acquire an appreciation for?
I’ve been told neem oil is more of a savory smell, like peanut butter, though I can’t comment on that as I’ve never quite worked up the nerve to buy a bottle.
Dear God! I love neem on my herbal acne soap and some on my itch stick (I suffer from eczema on my shins, I believe were caused by irritation – hoping not sensitization – to Tamanu oil). I am not kidding, when I apply my itch stick which is less than 2% of my formula, the whole office knows “Annie’s applying her ‘lotion’ again”. It’s THAT strong. The other EO’s somewhat hide it, lavender, peppermint, tea tree, but Neem definitely is super strong.
Yikes, 2%!? Ha. Sounds like the sort of itch stick you don’t pull out until later into a relationship 😛 How does the smell come through in soaps?
Neem oil has been on my to-try list for ages, mostly for insect repellent, but it’s legendary scent has kept it out of my shopping cart so far 😛 And agreed on the natural approach, just be sure to do your research—tea tree oil, for instance, is quite poisonous.
Tea tree oil is poisonous? Is that only if it is swallowed?
Jah—don’t snort it, either 😉
Hahaha! No worries of me doing that!! 🙂 Interesting. I’ll just keep using it on my skin then (not that I had a good reason to swallow it, but I was curious :).
Tea tree snorting party = worst party ever :/
toxic to cats and dogs and only so to humans if swallowed.
Yes, thanks for clarifying—tea tree is fine topically for humans, but don’t ingest it!
i am so sorry! i hadnt seen that you replied before i did. did not mean to overstep 😉
No worries—I love having a bit of a helpful community here 🙂 It fills me with warm fuzzies!
Marie, if you do get Neem oil, don’t be like me and buy only the 100 ml bottle (I got 500 ml and I regret it). The alternative to Neem oil is Karanji (or Karanj) oil. Said to have the same effects (or close to) but much less aromatic 🙂
Noted! And perhaps I will have to try both… for science… haha. I have a problem 😛
I’m with you on dislike of purchased hand sanitizer. I’ve had fancy jobs (the usual Admin Assist but require you to dress up) and usually those places act like they “care more” because security is a big issue and they make use of cheap hand sanitizer, and overly drying soap in dispensers, but hey..the cafeteria isn’t anymore expensive than a mid range restaurant (you get my drift). The hand sanitizer was so cheap it melted my nail polish that had to be reapplied minimum every other day (some of those job were 12 hour days – I was to tired to reapply every night after work). I have a problem with something that is supposed to keep me safe, and it melts my cheap nail polish. LOL
Nail polish itself and the remover usually used with it are made of some pretty foul chemicals. Why wouldn’t you just purchase some inexpensive alcohol hand sanitizer for your own use, and/or carry a small tube or bar of soap?
I’ve always despised nail polish remover, even as a kid, but I understood why when I learned you can use it to strip printing off plastic yoghurt containers (among other things). I always noticed it leaves my actual fingernails dry, which is a truly dodgy accomplishment—even our crazy dry Alberta winters don’t dry out my fingernails.
Another suggestion for carry-able hand washing would be a wee squeeze bottle of liquid soap. I’ll be publishing a recipe for that in the near future 🙂
squeeze bottle, tube….tomayto, tomahto…
Nail polish remover’s just acetone, so as long as you know the safe handling of acetone, it’s very useful…but neither it nor nail polish itself ranks up there with “natural” or “nontoxic” (and probably more hazardous than any hand sanitizer, homemade or commercial)
I suppose my general philosophy on cosmetics is that if I need acetone, or something equally as strong to remove them from my person, I do not want to be using that cosmetic 😛
Yuck! My mother feels the same way about bug spray after she had some melt a pen when the spray leaked…
Have you looked at any safer nail polish alternatives? It’s a tricky one, and I don’t invest much effort in sussing out alternatives as I refuse to wear nail polish, but No More Dirty Looks has done some sleuthing and found some 🙂
I love this… BUT. What can I substitute for the rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol? I’m allergic and I break out in hives any time it touches my skin, even for a moment, and even if I wash it right off. The hives are red and nasty, itch like mad, and last for up to a month!!! A real joy when an injection is necessary. 🙁 I know the allergy is incredibly rare, as I have heard of others having this issue but never met anyone else. Any suggestions?would ethyl alcohol suffice?
Hi Maggie! Honestly, I probably just wouldn’t make this. From the discussion above it’s likely not that effective at the concentration used, and using a lower proof alcohol like vodka would make it really ineffective. Sorry!
I just wanted to say something about preservatives. They used to freak me out a bit too, and many still do, but I found something called Tinosan. It’s all natural, silver sulfide and citric acid, used at 0.1-0.3%. It is water soluble and has been used in cleaning hospitals for some time. It is active against microbes, even killing germs on your skin, but is gentle. I have applied it at 100% to sensitive skin with no reaction. It is a bit pricey but it goes a long way. I use it in a liquid deodorant and it seems to make a difference. Sadly it breaks down with light, so opaque containers are needed.
In this recipe using the higher rec. % would help improve antimicrobial activity. I get mine from Voyageur Soaps and Candles if anyone wants to check it out (i don’t work for them or anything, i just like em 😉
Very cool, thanks so much! I’ve never ordered anything from Voyageur, but I know they’re here in Alberta, so perhaps I should 🙂
I thought Voyageur is in BC?
Hmm, so they are. I wonder who I was thinking of… I know there is a shop on the outskirts of Edmonton, which must’ve been the one I was thinking of.
I was just contemplating mixing up something similar (well, sorta similar… maybe) – incorporating hydrogen peroxide into the formula. I didn’t have an end in mind; I’m more just curious! If you’ve tried this, curious what your thoughts were! (If I try it, I’ll circle back and comment with how it works!)
I did try a lemon-juice based lotion as a combo hair-lightening lotion and deep conditioner. It works 😀 but with lemon juice and sunshine (photo sensitivity…) it’s nothing I’ll be giving away or selling anytime soon! ;-P
I’ve definitely never tried it—good luck!
Hi,Marie: Should a preservative be used since the ingredients includes water and honey? If so, would you be using Liquid Germall? T
I guess the note at the bottom of the recipe isn’t very clear—I just really wouldn’t recommend making this recipe at all since it’s ineffective. I’ll update the note 🙂
Wow. Even though this recipe is no longer recommended, I’m so glad the page is still up. 6 years later, I’ve really enjoyed reading the entire comment threat. Thank you everybody!
I’m glad you found it helpful 🙂 Happy making!
If you decided the recipe was ineffective, why didn’t you just remove it instead of “editing” it, which looks ridiculous and wastes people’s time?
Good question! 2 reasons: 1) By leaving it up I feel I am being transparent about my growth and development as a formulator, and that is important to me. 2) Leaving it up with a note that it’s not a good thing to make helps educate others that similar projects they might find elsewhere also aren’t a good idea—many of the projects I’ve faded out like this were inspired by things I’ve seen many times around the internet, and as I’ve learned as a formulator I’ve learned they are bad/unsafe/ineffective despite their popularity.
With the coronavirus “alive and kicking” I’ve been scouring the internet for recipes. I am now well schooled in what this needs to contain to be effective and have Lab Muffin’s life saving spreadsheet to figure out if my formulations are effective. I’m going to give this a shot and see what happens. If it’s successful, I’ll post.
As noted in the post I really don’t recommend this one anymore, especially in the face of a global pandemic :/ I’d stick with hand wash + the formulas supplied by the WHO if you have to make your own sanitizer 🙂 Stay safe & happy making!
The alcohol turned it into a creamy soup!!! Loooooo! I am still using it though.
Unfortunately, most all DIY hand sanitizer formulations will end up as a liquid since it has to have such a high alcohol content. Even the alcohol/aloe vera gel (2:1) version becomes liquid (NO ONE should attempt this mix anyway since most recipes for it are VERY WRONG!). Regular rubbing alcohol is 72% so nothing can really be added to it.
For those looking for a recipe they CAN make with the limited availability of everything: if you cant find the rubbing alcohol active ingredient, you can use Everclear. Its 95% ethanol alcohol (@ 190 proof).
Then add something to moisturize/protect hands like glycerin or pure aloe vera gel.
The end product must contain between 66-80% alcohol content overall (less wont be effective, more evaporates too quickly to work).
Most important, to figure your sanitizer’s total alcohol content:
1. Multiply the volume (ml or ounces) of the alcohol used by that alcohol’s strength percentage to get the true alcohol strength. (I.e. For 40oz of Everclear 95%, youd take 40 x .95 = 38, the true alcohol strength.)
2. Divide that true alcohol strength by the total volume (ml or oz.) of all the ingredients used. (I.e. if total volume of ingredients is 55oz, then 38 ÷ 55 = .69 or 69%, the sanitizer’s total alcohol content).