when you make your own hand sanitizer is
it okay to use aloe vera gel as an
ingredient the short answer is I don't
know but I'm going to show you why I
think it might not be a good idea if you
made the hand sanitizer using the World
Health Organization or who formula you
know that it's kind of liquidy it's not
a gel so I tried make making a batch and
putting it in this dispenser and stuff
would dribble out after I after I pumped
it so I thought I'd try making a more
gel like hand sanitizer using aloe vera
gel and it didn't help much I was
pumping it still dribbled and then I
left it out overnight and next morning I
guess found that the gel had separated
from the alcohol solution now what's
wrong with that it depends on whether
the aloe vera gel absorbs water and
alcohol equally I don't know that it
does maybe it absorbs water but not
alcohol in that case you've got a very
strong alcohol solution here and a weak
alcohol in the aloe vera part so if your
formulation has say 60% alcohol average
you might have more than 60% up here and
less than 60% here and that would not be
effective you need at least 60% alcohol
and on the other hand if you have pure
alcohol up here that is also not
effective because the way the sanitizer
works you need both alcohol and a little
bit of water at least 5% water to make
it work because the way it works is that
the alcohol and water combination breaks
down the proteins that make up bacteria
and viruses so what if you shake this
before you before you use it and mix it
up is that okay as you can see it's
dripping out anyway maybe it is but as
you can see there little particles or
little blobs of aloe vera in there we
don't know the water and alcohol are
thoroughly mixed in that in that so if
you're using aloe vera I would recommend
at least seventy-five percent alcohol
formulation not sixty percent because
you don't know exactly what's going on
in there
and I would also recommend you shake it
before you use it if you want to be safe
just use the World Health Organization
formula in summary I don't know if aloe
vera gel is okay as a hand sanitizer
ingredient and further investigation is
required by a chemist or a biologist who
knows how to evaluate it for
effectiveness