Properly washing your hands is one of the best ways to stop the spread of microbe transfer, and to protect yourself from getting ill with colds and viruses. But if you are out and about and do not have access to soap and clean water, it has been advised by the World Health Organisation to carry hand sanitiser to safeguard your health.
The result of these suggestions has been a huge rush to buy hand sanitisers leading to empty shelves in supermarkets and chemists.
Here is the recipe we use to make our own hand sanitiser
Ingredients:
Aloe Vera gel
Alcohol – high percentage proof rubbing alcohol – 90 %
Essential oils – lavender, tea tree, rosemary, bay, peppermint – (essential oils in our shop)
Method:
- Make your base by adding twice the amount of alcohol to Aloe Vera gel and mix together – this keeps the alcohol content around 60% if you are using 90% proof alcohol.
- You want around 1.5 – 3 % of essential oils. So in 100ml (total) of your base, this would be approx. 1.5 – 3ml of essential oils. In 1ml of essential oil, there are around 20 drops…so total you will need 30 – 60 drops of essential oils. We are recommending 5 essential oils so you will need between 6 and 12 drops of each essential oil.
- Mix the essential oils with the base and add to a bottle with a pump attachment to use as a hand sanitiser
Some benefits of our Sensory Herb Sanitiser blend:
- Aloe vera is a good moisturiser that will stop your skin drying out which is a hazard in itself with the amount of hand washing we are all doing. Cracks in the skin can increase the risk of bacterial infection.
- 60-80% proof strength alcohol is what is said to help destroy viruses and other micro-organisms on the hands.
- The essential oils we have choose all have been shown in research to have antiviral activity this does not mean that they have been researched specifically with Covid-19 yet.
Here is more general information in the form of research papers about some Anti-viral activity of essential oils
A comprehensive review of the antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral potential of essential oils and their chemical constituents against drug-resistant microbial pathogens:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0882401019304310
Chemical Constituents of Essential Oils Possessing Anti-Influenza A/WS/33 Virus Activity
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6296812/
Phytochemical analysis and in vitro antiviral activities of the essential oils of seven Lebanon species
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18357554
