Hand Sanitiser

Covid-19 outbreak has seen the sales of hand sanitiser go through the roof!! New York has even announced that it will start making its own to keep up with demand. In Australia we have seen local breweries pivot their business to capture the market in hand sanitiser.

So lets dive in a bit more about this product that has seen people go into frenzies trying to obtain in this current pandemic.

We know that washing your hands with soap and warm (not cold) water for 20sec is still the number one way to eliminate germs & viruses which can harbor microbes that spread but the second best way is to use hand sanitiser…. but why and what’s in it??

First of all most viruses are spread because the tiny droplets that come out of our mouth through sneezing and coughing can easily be transferred from person to person. It’s estimated that we touch our face 23 times an hour!!!!! without even realising it.

Hand sanitiser can protect us against these microbes where soap & water isn’t available. Keeping some in your car or handbag is a great way to remember to wipe over your steering wheel or trolley at the shops as well as your hands.

There are two types of sanitisers:

1. Alcohol based

2. Alcohol free

Having between 60-95% of isopropyl alcohol, ethanol or n-propanol is the optimum percentage to have to effectively kill most germs. When you buy commercial grade it will appear quite watery (this is good).

Alcohol-free however has quarternary ammonium compounds instead of alcohol. Although they do reduce the growth of microbes it won’t kill them outright, therefore it is much less effective than alcohol based. When you buy this it will usually be very thick like gel.

Why is alcohol (ethanol) so effective? It actually attacks and destroys the envelope protein that surrounds some of the viruses (including coronaviruses). You still need to make sure you cover your whole hand getting in between your knuckles, wrists, palms, back of your hands and fingernails and rub for at least 20sec to make sure it’s really effective.

Unfortunately, with all the shortages people are starting to make their own hand sanitisers and it just might not be as effective as commercially available products due to the alcohol (ethanol) percentage in them.

When you sneeze or cough into your hands you need a lot more than just hand santisier (although if that is all you have then it’s better than nothing) You need to wash them with soap because your hands are contaminated with mucous and mucous acts on protecting microbes.

At Divine Cleaning we not only clean your environment with hospital grade disinfectant but also sell our own commercial grade hand sanitiser in a 250ml bottle that is over 75% ethanol