DIY Wipes: Homemade Flushable Wipes {Costs less than 10¢ per pack!}

Wipes. We love them, we hate paying full price for them and we don’t want to talk about them.

Whether it’s flushable Cottonelle Fresh wipes for grown ups or Wet Wipes baby wipes for little bottoms, wipes help clean up shh… er.. well, you know what I mean. It’s a sh… crappy job, but somebody’s gotta do it. 😉

Like it? Repin it on Pinterest!

What’s the difference? The big difference between baby wipes (homemade diaper wipes) and homemade flushable wipes for grown-ups is the ingredients. Although you can certainly try whatever you’d like (I’m not about to start policing butt wipes), using baby products such as baby wash and baby oil for baby wipes makes sense! I’m making the grown-up version and it’s worked very well for my family.

Why make wipes? I wanted to make my own wipes because buying my favorite Cottonelle Fresh Flushable Wipes can get expensive! The last time I bought flushable wipes, I bought at Sam’s Club in bulk. I paid over $10! Sure, I got a lot of wipes, but the problem was, it took so long to use them that they got moldy! Yuck! Now you can make your own flushable wipes in whatever quantity works best for you.

What’s the best way to make flushable wipes? I’ve seen quite a few different ways to make flushable wipes online and on Pinterest. Many suggest cutting a whole roll of paper towels in half with a knife, then adding liquid. That seems like a big commitment and my machete is out on loan (giggle). One blog talks about tearing each paper towel from a whole roll, and then folding them on top of each other just so. I might do that once… but I can’t see doing that every few weeks! (Let’s be honest, I probably wouldn’t do that once.)

How I did it: I used 12 paper towels (yes, 12!) and made two cuts with scissors (cutting into thirds). Not that you couldn’t use all those the paper towels from the other examples eventually, but my way seems much easier!

Simple ingredients you have at home. And lastly, some of the ingredients suggested in other “recipes” for homemade wipes are things I’d never even heard of! I mean, sure you can use whatever you want. But, I like easy and fast. I’m funny like that.

Price breakdown: as I said, buying wipes can really add up. If you buy a regular container of Cottonelle Fresh Flushable Wipes, you’ll pay around $2.49 per package, and up to $20 if you buy in bulk! You’ll save per sheet (as low as 4¢ each) but you have to shell out twenty bucks!

The Member’s Mark paper towels were $14.98 at Sam’s Club, for a pack of 12 “super mega rolls”. Each has 175 sheets per roll. I used 12 sheets. Each roll costs $1.25, and each sheet costs $0.007 (that’s just over half a penny, and a code name for James Bond). So, my 12 sheets cost a whopping 8.5 cents.
The soap was another bulk deal, so I’m going to call the tablespoon I used about 3 cents.
The bottle of baby oil I used cost $1, and I used a tablespoon. I’m calling that another penny, give or take.
I reused the container I had from my Cottonelle wipes
And, water is basically free

Total for a whole container of Homemade Flushable Wipes = less than 10¢

So, without further ado… Here’s the EASY, CHEAP and FAST way to make your own Homemade Flushable Wipes using stuff you have at home. Oh, and I even reused the container! How’s that for being green?!

Gimmie’s Homemade Flushable Wipes

Ingredients

2 cups water
1 tablespoon soap (liquid, or bar soap grated into small pieces)
I used Dove sensitive bar soap
1 tablespoon baby oil
12 paper towels, folded
I used Member’s Mark paper towels from Sam’s Club, but you can use anything that’s not super flimsy (Bounty, Viva, etc.). My paper towels are perforated so you can tear off smaller pieces (1/3 regular size) which is perfect for this!
Air-tight container
I reused a Cottonelle wipes container so the wipes pop up like a Kleenex box

Directions

If using liquid soap, skip to step 3
If using bar soap: carefully grate bar soap with a cheese grater. Put soap flakes and water in a medium saucepan. Boil until soap flakes are melted (about 5-10 minutes), stirring occasionally. Allow mixture to cool
Add baby oil to water & soap, and stir
Fold paper towels on top of each other like an accordion (when you pick them up they’ll look like a zigzag, shown below)
Cut the stack of paper towels into thirds with scissors (which was the perfect size for my container)
Arrange paper towels in container and pour liquid on top

As you can see, it’s really quick and easy to make your own homemade wipes!

Other ideas for ingredients:

Since some of our readers might want to use different ingredients, I scouted out a few other recipes. I didn’t use these things, but apparently some people have.