Personal hygiene is very important. If you want to stay safe and healthy, you must pay attention to your hygiene. Although soap and water can clean all the bacteria from your hands within minutes, they are not available everywhere. But unfortunately, germs are everywhere, which is why people need hand sanitizers.

What Is a Hand Sanitizer?

A hand sanitizer is an alcohol-based liquid or gel that can be used to kill the majority of microorganisms on your skin. By removing common pathogens from your hands, hand sanitizer keeps you safe. It is the best option when soap and water are not available.

Hand sanitizers have been around for quite some time. However, they became really popular during the coronavirus pandemic. When demand increased, so did the supply. But as more companies started making hand sanitizers, the quality of the products went down.

CDC recommends that customers only buy hand sanitizers that contain at least 60% alcohol. Otherwise, the hand sanitizer will not be able to kill the disease-causing microorganisms on your skin.

Is Hand Sanitizer an Alternative to Water and Soap?

According to the CDC, the best way to fight the spread of diseases is to wash your hands with soap and water. However, when you are not near a sink or you don’t have access to soap and water, you can rely on hand sanitizer. Even after using a hand sanitizer, you should wash your hands with soap and water as soon as you can.

Hand sanitizer is effective in killing a great number of microorganisms, but it does not clean your hands. It is also worth mentioning that there are different types of hand sanitizers. FDA has laid out clear instructions as to what kind of sanitizers manufacturers should be sold to the customers. But customers should also be vigilant when buying hand sanitizers.

To help people learn about different types of hand sanitizers, FDA has published a Q&A page on their website. By taking guidance from the FDA, you can figure out which sanitizers you can use and which you should avoid completely. People with skin allergies should consult their doctors before using a hand sanitizer.

Can I Make a Hand Sanitizer at Home?

Due to the pandemic, everyone shopped in a state of panic. People decided to stock up on different things so they could stay at home easily. Toilet paper wasn’t the only thing that disappeared from the stores; hand sanitizers also became scarce. People wondered if they could make hand sanitizers at home.

Although it is not easy to make a hand sanitizer at home, it is possible. There are many websites online that teach people how to make a hand sanitizer at home with just a couple of ingredients. But it is important to follow the instructions carefully if you want the end product to be effective against germs.

If you don’t follow the instructions carefully, you will end up with a hand sanitizer that can’t kill disease-causing microorganisms. The quality of the hand sanitizer will also depend on the recipe you are following. Mostly, blogs don’t recommend anything for creating one in gel form, which is why it might be important to learn how to thicken hand sanitizer.

How to Thicken Hand Sanitizer

If your hand sanitizer is too watery, it won’t be easy to use. It can also leak into your bag and ruin your documents or makeup. Since hand sanitizer contains alcohol, it can damage inanimate objects if it comes into direct contact with them. When people make hand sanitizer at home, it often ends up being too watery.

People want to know how to thicken hand sanitizer so it can be turned into the form of gel. When a hand sanitizer is thickened, it becomes easier to handle. A thick sanitizer also won’t leak from the bottle and ruin your bag.

In order to transform the hand sanitizer, you can use some easily available ingredients that are known to speed up the process.

Carbomer 940

Once your hand sanitizer is ready, it won’t be easy to thicken it. So, it is best to use a thickening agent when you are making your hand sanitizer. But if your hand sanitizer is ready and you want to turn it into gel form, you can do that with the help of Carbomer 940.

It is important to mix Carbomer 940 in your sanitizer properly if you want to get the desired results. It is also important to get it from a credible seller or you might end up with a fake product. You will have to use a sifting screen to add Carbomer 940 to your sanitizer slowly.

If you don’t add Carbomer 940 to your sanitizer slowly or if you don’t keep on stirring continuously, lumps will form in the liquid. Due to this reason, you should follow the instructions carefully. It may be time consuming, but it is the best way to thicken your hand sanitizer.

Aloe Vera Gel

Aloe vera gel is one of the best natural products for skin. It can moisturize your dry skin quickly. It is also effective against inflammation. The majority of home-made sanitizer recipes list aloe vera gel as an ingredient. But when people use a small amount of aloe vera gel, it fails to thicken the hand sanitizer.

If you are mixing alcohol and aloe vera gel to make a hand sanitizer at home, choose the right amount of the latter. If you are following a recipe, take out the mentioned amount of both of your ingredients in a bowl and then add an additional scoop of aloe vera gel. It will make your hand sanitizer thick without affecting its effectiveness.

Xanthan Gum

The problem with common thickeners such as gelatin is that they don’t mix well with alcohol. But xanthan gum is an exception because it has a high alcohol tolerance. As with Carbomer 940, xanthan gum should also be added in your sanitizer slowly. Don’t forget to whisk the mixture after adding xanthan gum or lumps will begin forming in it.

You can easily find xanthan gum at a grocery store. You might have some already in your house. Since it is so easy to find, xanthan gum is definitely the best thickening agent when it comes to hand sanitizers. You should also add a couple of drops of an essential oil in your sanitizer; otherwise, you will have to tolerate the unbearable smell of rubbing alcohol.

Takeaways

When the store runs out of hand sanitizer, you should try making your own at home. But if you don’t want it to be too watery, don’t forget to add a thickening agent. Not all kinds of thickening agents will work in a hand sanitizer because of alcohol.

So, it is better to stick to the thickening agents mentioned above if you don’t want your sanitizer to lose its effectiveness.