Making Babies (OK...making baby WIPES)

This bum's feeling good with these homemade baby wipes!

As I was typing "baby" the song on the radio said "baby"...I live for coincidences like that.

So, I make my own baby wipes (you need paper towels, baby wash, water, a stove, a wipe container, and oil - optional) here at Casa Fitzgerald. I'll give you some food for thought:

The cheapest wipes cost $25.99/770 wipes. This means they're $.033 each.
My paper towels are Bounty $6.99/12 rolls on sale at CVS. Follow me through the breakdown:

There are 56 sheets in a roll. Times 2 because you cut it in half. That gives you 112 wipes/roll.

112 wipes/roll x 12 rolls = 1344 wipes. That's $.0052/wipe. That means these wipes are 6.35 times cheaper than the wipes you buy. Oh, and you know what's in them, so that's nice...no chems. Oh, and you have to account for the soap you put in them but trust me that's nominal. OK fine, I'll do the math since every cent counts...

We use California Baby which is the creme de la creme of baby washes...all organic etc etc etc...
It's $1.00/oz. That's expensive - shit. Fortunately, in these wipes you use about 1 1/2 teaspoons per batch, which is .25 oz which means $.25 per batch. Half a roll makes about a batch, so that'd be $.50 of wash for every roll. That means $6.00 of wash for every 12 rolls of paper towels.

The wipes now cost $.009/wipe, which is still more than 3.6 times cheaper than store bought wipes, and they're organic and natural. So you win, basically.

Here's how you do it:

1. This part's a pain in the ass. Prepare the rolls of paper towels. You may want to do this all at once (like when you buy the pack just cut them all). You should use the sharpest knife you have. Serrated ones will produce a bunch of ripped off paper pieces, so a knife like a meat cleaver is best to work with (I have my Miracle Blades!). I hear an electric carving knife works well, too.
2. Once it's cut, you can do two things. One is purchase a plastic cylindrical container that will hold the roll. The other thing you can do is fold the whole roll accordion style in a way that makes the wipes fit in your old wipe container. This is what I do, it's time consuming but relaxing. You just fold each sheet in half until it's a nice stack that will fit in your tub. I leave them all connected and just rip as I go. Half a roll = 1 batch.
3. Take the water (about 2 cups) and boil it for a few minutes (this helps remove the possibility the wipes will mold). Then let it cool to room temperature. When it is room temperature, add the soap (1 1/2 t. soap) and mix it up (You can also add some vitamin E oil or Olive oil at this point to make them more moisturizing for sensitive bums...that would make these wipes a full $.01/wipe. Still 3 times cheaper than store bought)
4. Pour the mixture over the wipes. You can pour it all in and wait for the towels to absorb it, but since the tub container and number of wipes you'll have will vary, I like to play it safe and avoid having too much extra water in there. I just pour the solution over the wipes slowly, and add more and more until the wipes are wet all the way through. If you've used the cylindrical container method, you can now pull the cardboard out of the middle and pull the wipes from there.
5. Voila. You have homemade baby wipes for your baby or yourself!

scrimpyTip:

- You have to use good quality paper towels or else they will fall apart.
- You can add all sorts of essential oils like lavender for scent.
- You can use any type of baby was you'd like