The best Homemade Hand Purifier recipe using vodka, witch hazel, rubbing alcohol and/or essential oils. Use easily as a gel or a spray! Chemical-free homemade hand sanitizer that is ideal for the whole family.
I don’t care for store-bought hand gel. It’s sticky, stinky, and I’m not on board with adding chemicals to my hands to clean them.
Luckily, there are several options for making an all-natural homemade hand gel. This tutorial will make two kinds you’re used to seeing at stores: gel and spray.
Make this homemade hand sanitizer recipe for times when it is not convenient to use regular soap and water. It is my preferred method for using a hand cleaning gel because it’s:
- Natural. All of the ingredients are naturally derived.
- Non-toxic. Meaning, no icky chemicals. A much safer option for the family to use!
- Customizable. You can make it based on your scent preferences, or whichever purifying essential oils you happen to have at home. Want to have an alcohol based hand sanitizer? You can just make it!
What you need:
- 2 drops tea tree essential oil**
- 3 drops essential oils** with purifying properties (lavender, thyme, peppermint, clove, cinnamon, rosemary, eucalyptus OR Thieves blend)
- 1 Tbsp liquid (water OR witch hazel OR rubbing alcohol OR vodka)
- 3 Tbsp aloe vera gel
- 1 tsp vitamin E oil (a soothing, nourishing oil that acts as a preservative)
- squeezable tube or glass jar for storage (or re-purpose a suitable container)
Quick Note on Essential Oils
However, if you feel Young Living is a little out of your reach, or you’re not interested in joining, I’ve heard great things about Plant Therapy on Amazon.
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1. Combine ingredients in a small bowl.
Step 2. Pour into a squeeze or spray bottle and use hand sanitizer as needed!
That’s it! It’s literally that simple! 🙂
Tips
- If you’re paying off debt or for whatever reason cannot afford the ingredients for the homemade hand sanitizer recipe above, consider using vinegar!
- Vinegar is non-toxic, edible and kills 99% of bacteria. Just keep some in a small spray bottle, spray on the hands and rub together. Shake or wipe dry and you’re good to go.
- The scent of vinegar is strong and sometimes undesirable. Consider making citrus infused vinegar or use homemade apple cider vinegar for FREE instead!
FAQs
Vodka and Vitamin E oil are natural preservatives. The shelf life of homemade hand gel will be several months if you use both. If you omit both, you’ve got about a month or so.
Some purifying essential oils (like cinnamon especially) can be irritating to sensitive skin. Use less essential oil, or add more of another essential oil that soothes (like chamomile).
Straight up, homemade hand gel is NOT more affordable than store-bought. But it doesn’t have icky stuff… so you kinda have to pick and choose what’s more important to you.
Hello!
I will be trying this recipe soon! Is this recipe for a 1oz bottle?
Thanks!
Hi Heather! This will be enough for 2-3 1 oz bottles.
Hi Tiffany! I am an essential oil newbie (got my YL starter kit a couple months ago) and I have read that you should not use plastic with essential oils because the oils can break it down. I only use hand sanitizer when there is no option to wash hands when on the go with my kiddos so I’d rather not travel with a glass jar, but I’m wondering if plastic is a good idea? Appreciate your feedback!
Thanks,
Sarah
Hey Sarah – Welcome to YL! You’re right in general terms, avoid plastic with oils. However, YL offers several items in plastic containers (i.e. Thieves hand purifier, Thieves household cleaner, etc.) that come in plastic. My guess is that it depends on what specific oils, and the concentration. For this hand gel recipe, I think you’ll be fine!
Can you tell me where you got the bottle pictured. I would prefer not to buy it from amazon but if it is the only choice will consider it. I tried the gotubes they show and could smell the oils thru them
I think I got that bottle from the travel section at Walmart. 🙂
I think that you are confusing hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap. There is no triclosan in hand sanitizer because the FDA doesn’t allow it. Alcohol is what kills the germs in hand sanitizer.. As far as alcohol being addicting, it is not going to happen by using hand sanitizer! Of course hand washing with regular soap and water is best when available, but for people with less than optimum immune systems, it can be very helpful. I do like the making my own hand gel with essential oils, but I don’t think anyone should be afraid of hand sanitizer.
I am not so worried about it. But I don’t know much about hand sanitizer in general. Chemicals don’t scare me. Since everything can be broken down into chemicals. I am made up of chemicals. So is the tree outside. Chemicals are all around us. So to me. It’s the type of chemical. And it’s the dose that is more concerning. If I was going into a hospital, I wouldn’t hesitate to put on sanitizer to keep ppl with compromised and life threatening immune systems issues safe. (If someone had cancer or recovering from surfery… A little virus or germ can become life threatening.) that being said, Do I buy hand sanitizer? I don’t. Because I think soap and water is fine. And for most people germs are important for immune systems.
Can you use a different oil than Vitamin E? I have jojoba and almond and coconut. Would any of those work?
Vitamin E is a preservative and moisturizer. You can sub another liquid oil, but it might not last as long. If you use it daily though, you should be fine. 🙂
I am a health care worker and a school bus driver. I am around hand sanitizer all the time .I don’t like them they are sticky and smell horrible.I am going to try the homemade sanitizer. Thank you for the alternative ingredient to using lavender. I found out I was allergic to it on a girl scout trip, when they made homemade soap. I was devastated to find that out, I like lavender.
Stephney,
That is a huge bummer about being allergic to lavender. Do you know if they were using Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade lavender essential oil? If not, you could have been allergic to the lavender essential oil used on the girls scout trip because it wasn’t CPTG essential oil….so, you may have been allergic to something added to the essential oil. Just a thought 😉
Can you recommend some specific brands of aloe Vera gel that are good? I keep hearing there are questionable ingredients in most of those as well. The link you provided just led me to an Amazon search for it.
Can I use fresh aloe vera gel to make this recipe?
I can’t wait to try it and hopefully keep making it for use in my class!!
Do you mean from an aloe vera plant Mayra? I haven’t tried that, but it should work. The consistency will be a bit different, maybe more lotion-y than gel, but it should still do the job!
I like the fact that you give alternatives to products available in the marketplace. Most of us haven’t gotten into the essential oil craze, though. I will have to research some other natural alternatives for the hand sanitize. Keep up the good work, though!
Hi Jean! Apple cider vinegar is a great alternative to essential oils (mentioned at the bottom), but even just tea tree oil – which can be found at most drug stores – is better than the chemicals in typical hand sanitizer!
For my family we use Clean well hand sanitizer. It has no tryclosan or alcohol in its spray. I forget where I bought it but you can buy it on Amazon.
Thanks for the recommendation Jeanne!
Hi Lisa! Yes, you can use just tea tree if you prefer. The other oils have beneficial properties, but also help with the smell since tea tree can be overwhelming and some people don’t prefer it (even more so in kids!).
One has to be careful with essential oils. They can be hormone disruptors and therefore not good for kids. Minimize your use of them also, kids can be allergic to tea tree oil with symptoms of redness and itching. The best thing is coconut oil, but you don’t want to kill the good bacteria too. Maybe put some probiotics in there? What do you think? by killing all good and bad bacteria, you allow more bad bacteria to flourish.
Right Katherine – we don’t want to kill all the bad bacteria all the time. Soap and water should be first and foremost whenever feasible; hand sanitizer is an option of last resort. Tea tree oil diluted in this recipe should be okay for most children and adults. If anyone experiences an adverse reaction, as with anything, discontinue use.
As for EO’s disrupting hormones, I have not read any reliable literature on that topic (although I have read unreliable myths!). Do you have any research to share with me? Thanks in advance!
Here are some articles. These articles are talking about the same research but dr. Weil explains in more detail.
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/jan2007/niehs-31.htm
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA400247
I’m sure it’s ok, but essential oil properties should be considered. I like to be in the safe side since my experiments with homemade cleaning products have caused rashes. I just stick to plain old white vinegar and that’s it for my cleaning.
But anyway, I have 5 different essential oils at home and use one drop per 2 or 3 cups of water.
It may be best just to see what your kid likes.
I prefer grapefruit oil. Although my mom will not touch grapefruit oil because of the medication she takes.
Triclosan has ben banned now for a few years and is no longer found in soaps or hand sanitizers.
Triclosan was found to be an ‘endocrine disruptor’
I use coconut oil w/lavender essential oil or somtimes just Witch hazel if I can’t get to soap and water.
Your recipe inspires me to try mixing it up a bit. Thanks
Sarah, the teacher hasn’t said anything so far! I say it’s worth a shot talking to the teacher.
Good news that it’s not triclosan Annie, and so good that you continue to check!! I haven’t read much into ethyl alcohol, but we avoid the sanitizers nonetheless!
Katherine, great news that your child and others in his class are using the natural version! I agree that it’s sad that our society is to the point where hand sanitizer and cough medicine can be abused – all the more reason to use it supervised and to teach children proper usage, as well as proper hand washing!
I’d love to make the spray version. Haven’t missed the instructions for the spray one as I can’t seem to find it. Many thanks
Hi Sue,
You can use the same ingredients, but put in a spray bottle rather than a squeeze bottle. 🙂 It should be thin enough to spray it. I will clarify this on the post. Thanks so much! 🙂
I don’t allow my son to use alcohol or triclosan containing hand sanitizers. I told his teacher he would bring in his own bottle. I told her i dont approve of hand sanitizers with those chemicals! I told the principal as well. She seemed concerned but never made steps to do anything about it.
It was just a about a half cup spray bottle I had him take. I found out that other kids in the class were using his. I am glad actually. So this time I will be sending a much bigger spray bottle! I just use a tsp of coconut oil, two drops of grapefruit oil into a half cup of warm water.
the ones with alcohol can be ADDICTIVE! Because of the high alcohol content it absorbs quickly into the skin. Believe it or not, kids have actually tried drinking the stuff because of the alcohol. There are youtube videos on how to extract the alcohol. Kids have done it and were hospitalized.
As an elementary school teacher, I know first hand the overuse of hand sanitizer. We do use it at my school but there is talk of banning it due to overuse of it. I’m not a huge fan of it but when you have thirty kids and ten minutes for restroom time because of scheduling, you do what you have to. I do make sure it uses ethyl alcohol which is the lesser of two evils and when we are able, soap and water is the first choice.
Please tell them to stop using it. It contains over 60 percent alcohol which can be addictive. There are others with no alcohol and no triclosan out there. Schools are taking it too lightly. This is serious. There are videos out there on how to extract the alcohol from them done by teens. They have been hospitalized. Please make every effort to stop use of these hand sanitizers.
Myra, I had a feeling scheduling was to blame. My kids’ classes are smaller, but I have no doubt the situation is similar. I speak for all parents when I say thank you for choosing soap and water when you can!
My favorite use of hand sanitizer in schools is right before lunch time. Yes please fill my child’s hands with chemicals right before he eats. The teachers at my son’s school didn’t see anything wrong with using it before lunch and snack times. When I complained they didn’t see what the problem its was for them to use it then eat. I asked them to use hand sanitizer, wait a few minutes, then like their fingers. They thought I was crazy but did it anyway. They now take the extra time for all the kids to was their hands in the washroom and classrooms sinks.
LOL, I appreciate you sharing this Daisy! Although a serious topic, it’s a funny anecdote for explaining your reasoning to the teachers with a great outcome. If only all of us parents were so bold!
I have never liked hand sanitizer for the “icky” feel it has and it always seems to make my hands feel dry. I am planning on trying your recipe and am letting my daughter-in-law know about this blog. She will love this recipe.
Thanks for sharing Charlene!
Would it be a problem to leave out the aloe or is there a substitute? I am allergic to aloe and most of the DIY hand sanitizer use aloe.
Hi Angela!
You can use glycerin in place of aloe. 🙂