COVID Friendly DIY Wedding Hand Sanitizer

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While many people have postponed their wedding because of COVID-19, you or someone you know…. like me, does not want to wait to marry the love of their life. I know I did not and because we care about the health and wellbeing of our friends and family, we want to make it as safe and comfortable as possible. That is probably how you stumbled upon this post.

All of us have been to a wedding at one point or another and received different types of party favors. Some of these wedding favors I still have to this day. So how can you make a wedding favor that your guest will keep and use while incorporating their safety? I turned to Pinterest for ideas and boy were there a ton! I thought personalize hand sanitizers would be a cute yet COVID friendly idea.

Now where do I start? What size bottle’s do I want to get? Where do I want to get them from? Where can I find hand sanitizer in bulk? Lol. How do I personalize them? How do I make them special for my wedding? I did a lot of research to find the best prices and I am happy to share it all with you.

What you will need -

· Plastic 1oz flip top bottles or

· Plastic 2oz flip top bottles

· 1 Gallon hand sanitizer (128oz)

· 1 Gallon screw on pump (optional but recommended)

· Avery 1 ½” square labels

· Alcohol Inks (optional)

· Mica Powders (optional)

1. Decide if you want to give away 1oz or 2oz bottles. I ended up going with 2oz bottles. I could have gone with a 1oz bottle, but I wanted my guest to be able to take this wedding favor and keep it for a while. Let’s be honest, its not like the hand sanitizer is going to go bad.

2. Next, you will need to get your sanitizer. I found it by the gallon on Amazon and Sam’s Club’s website for around $35. Depending how many you are looking to make, one gallon will fill roughly 64(ish) 2oz bottles. (I say "ish" because getting that last little bit of sanitizer out of the bottle is a pain.) I knew I wanted to make at least 100 so I bought 2 gallons. You will also want to get a pump to make it 1000 times easier to get the hand sanitizer into the small bottles.

Tip: You can use a funnel but you may find yourself frustrated. Due to the thickness of the hand sanitizer, it will not drain through the funnel the same as a thinner liquid. I definitely recommend using a pump you can screw on the top of the gallon jug of hand sanitizer but you might want a funnel for the last little bit a pump wont be able to get out.

3. Now what design do you want to put on your labels. I purchased my Avery labels off Amazon and used their design templates to find a design I liked, filled in my wedding information and printed them. You can also upload your own design. Canva has a bunch of free customizable templates you can personalize, save and upload to Avery.

Tip: I recommend filling your bottles before adding the label. With the hand sanitizer being mostly alcohol, if it runs onto your label, it will make the ink bleed and you will have to replace the label.

Tip: I cut a pool noodle in half and held it together with two rubberbands to lay my plastic bottle on so it didnt roll away.

Now you can leave your sanitizers plain with just your label or you make them even prettier by matching them to the colors of your wedding. Since I had a fall wedding, I choose to go with a yellow, orange and teal. So how do you tint the color of your hand sanitizers? With alcohol inks! You can find these at Michael’s, Hobby Lobby and of course Amazon. Fill your sanitizer bottle about ¾ of the way up and start by adding 1-2 drops of the alcohol ink color of your choice. Replace the lid and shake. If the color is lighter than you would like, add 1-2 more drops, replace the lid and shake. I would make them a shade darker than you would like because the bottle still needs to be filled up.

Another option for adding color but with a little shimmer would be to add some mica powders. Most mica powders will have some shimmer to them.

Just and FYI, I did test all the colors I made and none of them, not even the teal, left a tent or any trace of the color on my hands. I was hoping the mica powders would leave a little shimmer but no such luck with them either, lol.

Whether you decide to make these for your wedding or to go with something different, I hope you found some inspiration to create something amazing for your big day!