DIY Hand Sanitizer Clumping
HEC works ok, but it's not that easy to use. You have to hydrate in pure water for a few hours or more, ideally with stirring, and then incorporate the alcohol a little at a time with high shear mixing. You can use a blender, though it will incorporate a lot of air. If you use too much HEC, the "mother" gel (the HEC and water that will become 30% of your final product) will be very firm and it will be difficult to avoid lumps throughout, and the line is very thin between this and ending up with an unusually thin product. When I'm using this, I err on the thin side and use about 0.8% w/w HEC, so the "mother" is 2.67%.

Some other polymers are much easier to work with if you can get hold of them, notably Sepimax Zen aka. GelMaker PH (Polyacrylate Crosspolymer-6). These can be added directly to a 70% isopropanol or ethanol mixture and need no further ingredients to activate or correct the pH afterwards.

I have not tried aloe vera but I think it would be difficult to get a gel with 70% alcohol. I know lots of YouTubers and bloggers are recommending it. Success may depend on what other thickeners have been used in the aloe vera product. I've seen some videos where the result was the extremely thin liquid with a bit of stickiness that you would expect from the recipe.