These days hand sanitizer is flying off the shelf; if you can find any on the shelf.  And that’s doubtful. I haven’t seen any on my weekly grocery trips in over six weeks.  Since my husband, son, and daughter are “essential workers,” they began to complain about the disinfectants they are forced to use.  Looking at their cracked hands, I decided to remedy that with my simple DIY easy hand sanitizer recipe.  This recipe is designed to include a moisturizing ingredient to help prevent some of the dryness from constant sanitizer usage.

Easy Hand Sanitizer Recipe

With only three ingredients, one of which is optional, you’ll be able to always keep this on hand. I’ve included substitutions and different scent options, but feel free to get creative and mix your own favorite scent! The sky’s the limit.

While this recipe uses rubbing alcohol, which does dry skin, I’ve balanced it out with aloe vera gel. Aloe Vera gel is known for its benefits of soothing sunburn or moisturizing dry and irritated skin.  If you want fragrance free hand sanitizer,  just omit the essential oil.

Printable Easy Hand Sanitizer Recipe

Easy Hand Sanitizer Recipe Scent Options:

I usually only use one scent at a time. Some of my favorites include peppermint, lavender, lemon-grass, and lemon essential oil.
Energizing Lemon-Rosemary– Mix an equal amount of lemon and rosemary essential oil.
Soothing and Relaxing Blend: Mix an equal amount of lavender and chamomile essential oil.
Stuffy Nose Clearing Blend Mix an equal amount of eucalyptis and peppermint essential oil.

Other good combinations:
Lavender combines well with any citrusy scent such as lemon, lemon-grass, orange, or grapefruit. Other good scents to mix with lavender include rose essential oil, geranium essential oil, and cedarwood essential oil.
Peppermint combines well with any of the following scents; grapefruit, lemon, rosemary, or tea tree oil.
Rosemary combines with peppermint, lavender, thyme, or tea tree oil.

Handy Alcohol Substitutions:

Don’t have rubbing alcohol? Open that bottle of clear vodka you’ve been saving and substitute an equal amount of vodka for the rubbing alcohol.  If you need some right away, you can always use Everclear, although you’ll have a slight boozy smell exuding from yourself.

How are you staying safe during the pandemic?

Need more DIY recipes? Check these out:

DIY Vanilla Hand Scrub– Has only 4 common pantry ingredients!

DIY Lavender and Mint Hand Sanitizer Spray– an old Shaker recipe from Pleasant Hill Shaker Village in Kentucky, this recipe has only 4 ingredients!