Sanitizer: Don’t Do It Yourself

So the news tells you of the latest new pathogen, Coronavirus now, but who knows what the next one will be, likely to cause serious disease. You read about risks of contagion, social distancing, and personal hygiene., your anxiety level is rising as you picture swarms of viral particles clinging to your hands, ready to enter any bodily orifice and wreak havoc with your health. Looking to remove the perceived imminent threat, you turn for a squirt of solace in the form of hand sanitizer. And you are out, empty, none in the house. A trip to the store reveals only empty shelves. So you scour the Internet for a recipe to make your own., should you use 70% or 91% isopropyl alcohol, 90% ethanol, vodka, or something else; and how about using essential oils, or aloe gel?

No. Don’t. Please.

In an earlier post,I discussed why washing your hands is better than using a hand sanitizer. But let me review the problems with a home brew version. First of all, the “sweet spot” for alcohol content in these products is about 60%. to 70%. Less than that does not create an effective germicide. Higher concentrations of alcohol can actually damage the protein in your skin. So if you start with anything less than the desired concentration, such as 70% isopropyl alcohol, you can’t get an effective level once you add gels or other liquids. And forget vodka or such. Eighty proof vodka is only 40% alcohol. Great to drink, but not to kill microorganisms. And if you use 98% or 99% grain alcohol, or ethanol, you run the risk of having too high a concentration, with drying out, cracking, and bleeding skin. And that certainly is not a good thing.

Then the are those additives, essential oils, coloring agents and the like. They do nothing but add a fragrance. They have no part in a product designed to kill microbes. And adding Aloe to the alcohol is not enough to keep your skin soft and supple, the alcohol overrides that.

Also, the many suggestions for using other agents, such as witch hazel, or tea tree oil, are just ill informed. These agents are not antibacterial, antiviral, or antifungal. They just don’t belong in a sanitizing product.

In order to produce an effective hand sanitizer, you need a lab quality facility, with precise measurements, sterile containers (why introduce germs into your sanitizer?), and instruments capable of verifying the strength and quality of your product. You don’t have that in your kitchen.

Look, I am not saying that using the commercial product when other means to clean your hands are not available is wrong. A few years ago I wrote a post telling you to carry some with you just in case. But even then I detailed the preferred method of cleaning your hands.

Soap & water.

Up until 1988, we did not have hand sanitizer. But we still had clean hands and were able to prevent disease. That was done with the time honored technique of washing one’s hands with soap and water. And that still works. In fact, it works better than hand sanitizer, does not dry out the skin, and does not promote resistant organisms, as the sanitizer does.

So please reread my post about washing your hands and practice it until you get it right. Avoid touching your face or any body orifices with hands that are not clean, and you will go a long way towards preventing nasty microbes from invading your body and causing disease. It is not foolproof, guaranteed, 100% effective, but what is?