Hand Sanitizers

Some of ideas to make home-made hand sanitizer:
by Suzy Cohen RPh

Caution: Do not spray any of these on your face, or near your eyes
because it will burn. These are intended as recipes for external application only.

Hydrogen Peroxide.
You can buy 3% hydrogen peroxide pretty much anywhere still. Put this in a spray bottle and use it like you would hand sanitizer. If you want to make it last longer, dilute it with a little water.

Tea Tree Essential Oil.
Combine 10 drops of essential oil of tea tree and mix with approximately 4 ounces of water and put into a spray bottle. If the scent is too ‘antiseptic’ for you, you can certainly add some other essential oil that you like such as lemon or lavender, both of which offer even more anti-bacterial and anti-viral benefits.

Eucalyptus in Aloe Vera.
Pour out 1 ounce of aloe vera gel or juice into a 4 ounce spray bottle. You can use either in my opinion, and I’ve done that myself. The aloe juice is technically drinkable, but the reason it might be okay for your spray bottle is because it is less viscous, so it goes into solution very nicely. I’ve made my own home made facial toners using aloe vera juice (not gel). The gel is fine too, it’s just thicker and it’s sold for external use. Either way, the next thing you do is add 10 drops of essential oil of eucalyptus and finally, fill the bottle to the top with water. This on its own is a strong hand-sanitizer, however you can add other EOs if you’d like to. Thyme would be my choice, it has very strong anti-bug activity!

Distilled White Vinegar.
Many of you have bottles of plain vinegar in your home to use as a cleanser, or in recipes. You can buy about a gallon of this stuff for 5 dollars or so! Vinegar is a great disinfectant and is known to destroy many gram-negative bacteria like E. coli, Salmonella and other pathogens. You can use this all by itself, or add any EO to it that you like. If I were making this, I would add 5 drops each of patchouli, lemongrass, tea tree and thyme. That’s a total of 20 drops for your 4 ounce spray bottle. Feel free to experiment with other oils that I’ve included in my article today.

OnGuard by Doterra or Thieves by Young Living.
These two essential oil blends are popular among EO junkies so some of you reading this probably have either OnGuard or Thieves in your home. If you do, take about 10 to 15 drops of this and put it into your spray bottle with water. For those of you who do not have either of these proprietary blends, you can mock it up yourself. The essential oils in these are as follows: clove, cinnamon, eucalyptus, rosemary and this is where they differ…. one has lemon (Thieves) and the other has wild orange (doTerra). If you’re making this yourself, my suggestion is to use 5 drops of each EO per 4 ounce spray bottle.

Rubbing Alcohol.
If the stores run out of everything, you can always use rubbing alcohol to kill germs. Most people have an old bottle of this somewhere in their medicine cabinet. I recommend you dilute by about 50 percent with some water. It’s still going to have a very strong alcohol scent to it and it will be very drying. You can add one of my suggested emollients to the spray bottle. If the scent is too much, add some thyme, eucalyptus, lemon or orange. These are all very strong EOs that will mask the alcohol and add a layer of anti-everything to your sanitizer!

Colloidal Silver.
We all know that silver was the antibiotic of choice for years until proprietary drugs became available. Silver is a strong antibacterial. You can buy a bottle of colloidal silver and use it at 100% strength in your spray bottle. Don’t dilute it. I’d personally recommend that you add 5 drops each of clove and eucalyptus to the silver. Optionally, you can add some EO of bergamot, lemon, basil or rosemary to the mix. These not only add fragrance, but also more protection.

Boswellia and Bergamot.
You can make what’s called a decoction, it’s simple! This is the term used to boil an herb (plant material) to dissolve the special components in water. In this case, you will use bulk Boswellia serrata herb (buy online or at a health food store), and simmer it for 15 minutes in water. Strain it and cool it. Take your 4 ounce spray bottle and fill it almost to the top with the boswellia (frankincense) water. Add 10 drops of bergamot essential oil. If it has too much zing from the bergamot which is very citrusy, then add 10 drops of lavender essential oil to calm it down.

Turmeric.
There is an essential oil of turmeric that you can buy now, but it costs a lot. If you have this, add 10 drops to a 4 ounce sprayer along with 10 drops of cinnamon and 10 drops of grapefruit. It’s going to smell weird but it covers a broad spectrum of bugs. 

The one ingredient that you’ve probably heard of is called curcumin and it comes from turmeric spice. It’s a curcuminoid. You’ve heard me use that word before when I’ve talked about Joint Script which contains a special blend of curcuminoids (all 3 of them!). Anyway, it’s the turmeric root that gives us the curcuminoids which have strong anti-inflammation and antibacterial activity.*

So please don’t worry if you don’t have the essential oil. Simply buy the actual root of turmeric at a grocery store. It looks similar to fresh ginger, and turmeric root is almost always right next to the ginger in the produce department. Cut and peel an inch of turmeric and simmer in approximately 6 to 8 ounces of water. Strain and cool. This ‘turmeric water’ can be added to any blend above, or you could use it on its own in a 4 ounce sprayer.

If you have distilled water to use for this project, it would be ideal, but if all you have is regular water that is totally okay. 

Before closing, I’d like to mention that Selenium is an absolutely remarkable mineral with properties that support immune function.* It is usually not discussed in those terms because people think of selenium for breast and prostate, or thyroid function.