If you’d like to try making a homemade wipes solution for diaper changes, it’s very easy to do. The basic ingredients include distilled water, soap and oil.
Why distilled water? You don’t want tap water leaving mineral deposits in your wipes container. Tap water also tends to “go bad” more quickly. It’s also wise to stick to fruit or vegetable-based oils for your recipe; baby oil can build up in synthetic diapers and create problems with leaking and repelling.
Preparation is easy. Mix the solution, dip the wipes in and squeeze them out gently. Place in a ziploc bag, wipes warmer or other watertight container. To avoid potential problems with mold and mildew, it’s best to use water-based wipes solutions within 3 days. Another tip: to make your solutions stay fresh for much longer, you can replace water with witch hazel.
There are so many variations of wipes solution recipes online, that I want to just give you the basic, bare-bones recipes here, so you can add to it or customize as you like.
BASIC WIPES SOLUTION RECIPE
- 1 T liquid soap (baby wash, baby shampoo or Castille soap)
- 1/8 cup oil (olive oil, coconut, jojoba, aloe vera, almond)
- 3 cups distilled water
- 8 drops of essential oil, optional
If you are experimenting with essential oils, here’s a short list of ones that work well for wipes solutions and their specific properties. They can be found at any health store, and sometimes at the big chain stores, too:
- Tea Tree: anti-bacterial, anti-fungal
- Lavender: anti-bacterial, calming, fragrant
- Chamomile: calming, anti-inflammatory
- Calendula: calming, healing
- Patchouli: calming
- Peru Balsam: anti-inflammatory, anti-septic
One last tip to share: when dealing with a rash, it’s usually best to use plain water. Although wipes solutions are gentle, they can easily irritate an inflamed bum.
Have fun mixing and experimenting!
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Anne is a cloth diapering, home schooling, hobby farming and just all-around busy mother of six, with one on the way in January. She is the creator of the Zephyr Hill Blog and works from home as a professional naming consultant through her business Discovery Naming Service.
Love this recipe 🙂 It works great!
Thanks for the feedback, Kelly!
I didn’t know about the baby oil or the tap water. Thanks for sharing!
I brew some chamomile tea and use that as my base and use food grade veggie glycerin too. When i use coconut oil though, it tends to solidify in the spray bottle i keep it in. I just spray wipes as I need them.
That’s a great tip about the coconut oil, thanks for sharing Jamie!
Thank You! Your recipe will help me improve mine. I’ll substitute baby oil with almond oil and regular baby soap with Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap. Why didn’t I think of that?! It would make my solution so much greener!
Awesome blog, by the way 🙂
Thanks for the compliments, Milka!