Is Hand Sanitizer Effective?

By: Hannah Farley

Hand Sanitizer

           Hand sanitizer is very convenient for you and me. It takes a lot less time than going to the sink, turning on the water, squirting out soap, scrubbing your hands while you sing the ABC’s, rinsing, turning off the water, and finally drying your hands. In all that time you could’ve been out the door, gotten a start on dinner, made your bed, or basically anything simple. There is now a new thing that combats all that wasted time...hand sanitizer! It changes everything, all you do is squirt and rub all around your hands until it is dried. Your opportunities have just become endless. You can pack it with you when you go on a picnic or just have it always available for your kids to use to prevent the spread of germs. In healthcare hand sanitizer is used to go from patient to patient instead of washing hands, as long as there isn’t visible dirtiness or they have touched bodily fluids. Is it really safe though? Hand sanitizer is relatively new to this world. It is said that hand sanitizer is as efficient as washing your hands, when your hands don’t have residue, and is better for your skin. Is hand sanitizer the new soap?

       With this blog post, I want to help you understand the uses for hand sanitizer and what you can and can’t use it for. Hand sanitizer can only do so much. It can’t get rid of residue that is on your hands. Such as dirt, blood, urine, oil, food, or anything else you can see on your hand, those you have to use soap and water. Hand sanitizer also improves your skin condition.  

Hand sanitizer is pretty easy to use. First, you squirt enough to make it about the size of a quarter. Next, you rub it in, rub it in between your fingers, on the back of your hands to your wrists. You keep rubbing it until it is completely dry, otherwise it doesn’t work the right way. After you have used the hand sanitizer does it really work as well as washing your hands and does it improve your skin condition?

In an article it explains the best kind of hand sanitizer and how to use it. The best kinds of hand sanitizer contain ethanol, isopropanol, and n-propanol. The ethanol helps better with viruses, whereas n-propanol seems to be better for bacterial flora. Bacterial flora is just the bacteria that lives and grows inside your body. Non-alcohol based hand sanitizer does not help you in the same way. It does not get rid of all the germs that are on your hands. Because hand sanitizer is alcohol based it makes it so that it is not as irritating or damaging your skin.

In the an article I found to it talks about a study they did trying to figure out if hand sanitizer is as good as washing your hands. They took nurses and had some of them wash their hands and some of them used hand sanitizer. The results show that there was the same amount of germs on the hands of nurses that used hand sanitizer as the ones that washed their hands. They also found that the nurses that used the hand sanitizer had better skin. The soap we use is an irritant for skin. Hand sanitizer is effective and is better than normal hand soap is for your skin.

Since we have figured out that not only does hand sanitizer work as well as hand washing, but it’s also better for your skin, we can look at when it is good and when it bad to use hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is good to use instead of water, as long as your hands are not visibly dirty. The reason is because it may not be able to remove the residue as well and it is not proven that is can be used to take away the harmful chemicals that are on your hands from oils and pesticides. So we cannot totally replace soap with hand sanitizer.

We can now look at some of the claims of how bad hand sanitizer is for you. In the article it says that hand sanitizer is not as good as hand washing and that it takes some of the good bacteria that is on your hands and can be replaced by the bad bacteria. But in another article, it says that hand sanitizer is good to use if you do not have water and soap available to you. The article also says that it is more effective than when you use it in everyday life.

I think that hand sanitizer is a good thing to use and it is effective. It is useful in the medical field, it makes it so that the doctors and nurses do not carry viruses and bacteria from patient to patient, protecting your lives and theirs. It helps with fighting off the common cold. As long as your hands do not have residue on them, then hand sanitizer is just as effective as washing your hands with soap and water. Also, hand sanitizer is not as irritating to your skin as soap is because it is alcohol based. Your hands will be germ free and less damaged when you use hand sanitizer.