Last night I harvested Two Large Aloe Leaves. I bought them in stop and shop for a total of 3 dollars. If you have your own aloe plant, you should use the outermost leaves and they should be at least 8 inches long (fully mature).
INGREDIENTS: 1-2 Aloe leaves, 70 percent alcohol, essential oil
STEP ONE: WASH YOUR HANDS
How to Harvest: I first cut off about half inch of the wide end ( I refer to this as the bottom). Then stand it up bottom down, in a bowl leaning against a wall or something of that nature. The reason we must do this is to drain the latex. Latex is a yellow milky substance between the skin and the gel of the leaf.
The latex is not good for humans so do not skip this step.
Next I remove the aloe leaves and cleaned the latex out of my bowl. I then cut the aloe leaves in half (longitudinally) with a sharp knife. To specify I started at the bottom (wide end) and slid the knife all the way to the tip of the aloe leaf.
Then I took one slice at a time and scraped all the gel into my bowl with a spoon. For reference there are really only 3 parts of the aloe leaf. The skin (green) the latex (yellow) the gel (everything else). Since we already removed the latex, you should be scraping everything out of the aloe leaf all the way down to the green skin. (Its harder than it seems).
Once I had all the gel into my bowl I whisked it until it was less glob like ( you’ll understand this once you get to this step). I then measured 1 part aloe to 3 parts alcohol. How much you measure will depend on how much you are trying to make but keep the ratio the same. 1 part aloe 3 parts alcohol.
Note: The alcohol needs t be at last 70 percent but not much higher. 70 percent is better than 100 percent because without a small amount of water, the alcohol will coagulate the cell wall and prevent the alcohol from entering. Without water the alcohol cannot diffuse into the cell wall of the bacteria you are trying to kill, therefore the bacteria will not die.
After you add the 3 parts alcohol to the 1 part aloe gel you can add 3-5 drops of your favorite essential oil. You can also ass a few drops of vitamin E oil if you have it to better moisturize and protect your hands from the harsh and frequent alcohol.
Whisk it all together until it is a smooth gel/liquid consistency and then put it in the container you wish to use for dispensing!
Congratulations, you’ve just made hand sanitizer.
Farminsteadicals 