I tried to make baby wipes once before, when Cameron was a baby, and I hated them! I made a mistake though. I cut the paper towel roll the wrong way. I recently tried it again for Cora, and they are awesome! I am going to use my stockpile of Viva paper towels (which are really soft!!) on baby wipes with Cora.
Is it really worth it to use my precious time making baby wipes?? The answer? Absolutely!!!
The recipe:
1/2 of a paper towel roll (cut down the middle, as if you are making two rolls of TP)
baby wipes container (this may not work if you are using a double roll)
4 C hot water
1 T baby wash (head-to-toe type)
1 T baby oil
Mix the baby oil and baby wash into the water. Put paper towels into container. Pour some of the liquid mixture over the paper towels. Let soak. Repeat until all liquid has been added. When moist, remove inner cardboard tube from paper towel roll. The wipes will pull from the center of the roll.
Recently, at my grocery store, Giant Eagle, 2 packs of Viva paper towels were on sale for $3.59. I had found an IP (Internet Printable) on Kmart.com for $2 off. It was a manufacturer's coupon, so I was able to use it at my store. I bought as many packs of paper towels as of coupons I had. So in the end, I paid $1.59 per 2 pack, or $.795 per roll. One roll equals 2 containers of baby wipes, so that equals $.3975 per container of baby wipes. Now, my paper towels have 70 sheets per roll and they are one-ply, which is even better because when they get wet, the two-ply sheets will come apart (another mistake I made the first time around).
Stick with me, here. It gets better!!
You can buy a big container of Target brand baby wash for $2.74 for 28 oz. That works out to be about $.04893 per one container homemade baby wipes. You can also buy a big thing of Target brand baby oil for $2.14 for 20 oz. That is about $.0535 per one container of baby wipes.
If you add all of this together:
One 1/2 roll paper towels (70 sheets): $.3975
1T baby wash: $.04893
1T baby oil: $.0535
That equals a little under $.50 for a container of wipes. There are 70 paper towels, so that would equal
$.007 per wipe. That is LESS than ONE CENT per wipe!!
I used to buy wipes at Sam's Club. It was the best deal that I could find in my area. At Sam's Club, Huggies wipes are $14.93 for 720 wipes. That equals
$.0207 per wipe.
By buying wipes, you are paying over twice as more per wipe than if you made them. And as a mom, you know that some diaper changes require using 10 wipes!!
I know for sure that I am going to continue making wipes after doing the math!!
