Save by Making Your Own Wipes

Homemade Wipes Recipes

 I was spending $too much$ per month on various wipes for my family/house, so I decided to try making my own. I did some web searches for various recipes and the following are my versions of them.  Your wipes main ingredient will be paper towels.  Make sure they're strong, especially when wet.  I made my first batches today and purchased Bounty brand paper towels.  I don't normally purchase paper towels, so I'm kind of a paper towel virgin.  I found that these are not particularly strong when wet, although they work well dry.  They ARE very absorbent, however.

First, you will need some kind of airtight containers to hold your wipes.  I found some nice round plastic screw top canisters at the dollar store that fits a roll of paper towels cut in half quite nicely.  You can also use those plastic baby wipes boxes, gladware or even ziplock bags. 

Baby Wipes

Either cut a roll of paper towels in half using a sharp knife, remove the cardboard center carefully and place end up in your container, or tear off each sheet from a roll and fold into a stack and place into a square container or baggie.  In a bowl combine 1-2 tbs baby wash (I like the lavender scent, and prefer 1 tbs.), 1 tbs. baby oil, and 2 cups water.  Whisk together and pour evenly over your baby wipes.  If you have used the roll, pull up the center wipe for use.  Allow the solution to soak into the paper towels for at least 1/2 hour before using.  Flip container over at least once to allow even soaking.  These work wonderfully and I have found that I only use a couple per diaper changing compared to 4-6 of the store-bought wipes!

leaning Wipes

The recipe I first attempted called for 1 part bleach to 10 parts water.  I added this to a half roll of paper towels and found that the roll disintegrated from too much bleach.  I then went with a folded stack of paper towels in a wipes box.  I suggest using 1 part bleach to 20 parts water or even less bleach than that.  You could go with 2 cups water and 1 tbs bleach.  I added lemon fragrance to mine as well.  These wipes do an absolutely wonderful job cleaning surfaces!  I think they smell better than Clorox wipes, too, and don't have a lot of chemicals in them.