As insanity spreads even faster than SARS-Cov-2 (the coronavirus responsible for the disease COVID-19), it might be fun (and maybe even useful) to unpick one of the hoarders’ favourite targets:
Hand Sanitizer
Hand sanitizer is going to be absolutely essential to our survival, right?
Well, no. It isn’t.
When it comes to killing a virus, hand sanitizer comes second to vigorous washing with soap and water. Sanitizers are a useful complement to soap and water when constant handwashing is impractical and the risk of infection is high (such as in a hospital). Sanitizers are not a substitute for soap and water. However much you may dislike soap and water, hoarding or even using hand sanitizer won’t protect you or those with whom you come into contact. Wash your hands.
But hand sanitizer is effective, right?
That rather depends.
I tried to find standards and regulations that would apply to a product labelled “Hand Sanitizer” and sold as such. I didn’t find regulation that requires Hand Sanitizer to have any effect whatsoever on any virus, bacterium or other germ. I can piss in a bottle and sell it as Hand Sanitizer (if you want to try this you might want to consult a lawyer in case I’ve missed something). But as far as I can see, provided my snake oil contains no known allergens, I am free to sell it and I don’t have to list the ingredients. Ironically, if I added enough alcohol to my mixture to turn it into an effective sanitizer, then I would have to label the bottle to the effect that the contents were flammable.
If you are having difficulty believing that this product of the moment is so little regulated, I suggest you check out some of the hand sanitizers offered on Amazon (for example). See how many even list their ingredients.
Of course some hand sanitizers are effective. Healthcare professionals will select products that work, and some specify their own formulations. Even home-made sanitizers can be effective. (The ingredients for one of my versions are listed at the end of this piece.)
If it is affordable and available without prescription, an effective sanitizer will contain alcohol. (So all the “no alcohol” or “0% alcohol” sanitizers meet their claim that they won’t dry out your skin, but they won’t have much impact on a coronavirus. They might give some protection against secondary infections.)
The World Health Organization has published recipes for liquid handrubs. In both recipes the main ingredient (75% or more) is alcohol. This may be ethanol or isopropanol (which I discussed in A is for Alcohol). Only two other ingredients are used. Hydrogen peroxide is used as an antimicrobial agent, and a small quantity of glycerol is added as a wetting agent.
There appears to be a consensus that an effective hand sanitizer should contain a minimum of 60% alcohol and a maximum of around 95%. There should be some water in the formulation. The water helps the alcohol to penetrate the outer layer of a virus. Once the outer layer has been penetrated, the alcohol disrupts and destroys what is left. One study tested the efficacy of a number of hand sanitizer formulations with alcohol ranging from 60% to 95%. It identified two formulations containing 70% as the most effective amongst those tested (so increasing the alcohol content above 70% doesn’t guarantee a more effective sanitizer).
Home-made hand sanitizers can be effective if they contain a high enough concentration of alcohol. Most forms of liquor don’t contain enough alcohol. Spirits at 80º proof only contain 40% ethanol, far short of the minimum 60% required. Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol attracts less tax in most countries, so it’s cheaper. As I write all the useful sized bottles are disappearing from Amazon listings, but there are other suppliers, including on eBay, who still offer to supply.
One of the 2 widely available offerings of isopropyl alcohol contains 70% alcohol (with the balance being water). This is an effective sanitizer in its own right, but it has 2 drawbacks:
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- It evaporates rapidly, so it can be difficult to spread it to all parts of your hands before it has disappeared.
- It dries out skin, so it’s not very pleasant to use repeatedly.
Both these can be addressed, but that means adding ingredients and this will reduce the proportion of alcohol in the mixture. There’s a useful calculator published on Lab Muffin’s blog that shows how much alcohol you need in your mixture to achieve a particular proportion of alcohol overall.
Home-made hand sanitizer
This version has a concentration of 62% isopropyl alcohol.
I include glycerine (glycerol) in my sanitizer as a wetting agent. I also include aloe vera. Both ingredients help spread the liquid over your hands and slow down evaporation. They also help prevent skin drying out, so they make the sanitizer more pleasant to use than just alcohol and water.
The World Health Organization includes hydrogen peroxide. I don’t include it in this recipe because I believe its purpose is deal with possible contaminants in water used to dilute the alcohol. I have the luxury of access to distilled water and uncontaminated ingredients.
The final ingredient I add is peppermint essential oil. It goes some way to masking the smell of raw alcohol and contributes to making the sanitizer a little more pleasant in use.
So here’s the recipe for Insanitizer #51:
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- 100 ml isopropyl alcohol 70%
- 8 ml aloe vera gel
- 4 ml vegetable glycerine
- 0.5 ml (or 20 drops) peppermint (piperata) essential oil.
Put the ingredients in a bottle and shake to disperse the aloe gel and the essential oil. Let it stand for a while, and then shake it up again.
The mixture is flammable, toxic if ingested, and you should avoid getting it in your eyes.
Be well. Be safe.