Author Spotlight
Caroline Wood
With the coronavirus spreading across the country almost as fast as Bath & Body Works’ shelves are going bare, we need to make sure that we’re keeping our hands clean.
The Center of Disease Control and Prevention recommends washing hands with soap and water as the best way to reduce all germs and chemicals compared to hand sanitizer. Also, if your hands are visibly dirty, hand sanitizers are not as effective with killing germs. Using soap and water is the best choice for this situation as well.
“Alcohol-based hand sanitizers can quickly reduce the number of microbes on hands in some situations, but sanitizers do not eliminate all types of germs,” according to the CDC’s website.
However, there are times when the option to wash your hands isn’t available. In these cases, hand sanitizer is the back-up choice and a suitable on-the-go option.
The best use for disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer is to carry them with you when you go to public areas so that you can easily wipe down dirty surfaces or remove the germs from your hands. With everyone panicking and stocking up on essential cleaning supplies, it’s made it harder to find Purell and other well-known brands on the shelves.
So why not make some at home?
When making DIY hand sanitizer or disinfectant wipes, make sure the rubbing alcohol has an alcohol concentration of over 60%. The CDC advises this factor in alcohol-based hand sanitizers because studies have shown that the 60% alcohol concentration is most effective when killing germs. Lower concentration or non-alcohol-based hand sanitizers may not work against many types of germs.
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Hand Sanitizer
Supplies:
(I used a fraction of the recipe by diving everything by thirds: 2/3 cup of rubbing alcohol and 1/3 cup of aloe vera gel)
Directions:
First, you’ll want to measure out the rubbing alcohol and aloe vera gel depending on how much hand sanitizer you want to make. Then, take your bowl and stir the rubbing alcohol and aloe vera gel together. Pour the hand sanitizer mixture from the bowl into your bottle.
Review:
When mixing together the rubbing alcohol and the aloe vera gel, I was a little thrown off by how liquid-y the hand sanitizer was coming out, it was different from the typical, jelly-like consistency that I’m used to.
Plus, its unique green hue — due to the aloe I used — gave the product a fun pop. Although it wasn’t anything fancy like the Bath & Body Works hand sanitizers I collected on my second grade backpack, it was still functional hand sanitizer. Despite the lack of vanilla bean or wildflower smells, it had everything that it needed in order to be effective against germs.
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Disinfectant Wipes
Supplies:
(I used a fraction of the recipe by diving everything by thirds: 2/3 cups of warm water, 1/3 cup of rubbing alcohol, 1 teaspoon and as many paper towels as it took to absorb all of the mixture)
Directions:
Combine the warm water, rubbing alcohol and dish soap in a bowl and mix well. Place paper towels in a Tupperware container, and pour the mixture into the Tupperware. The paper towels will absorb the mixture, turning them into disinfectant wipes.
Review:
Ever since the coronavirus has been around, I feel like I’ve been more sensitive to dirty and grimy surfaces. I’ve found these wipes to be helpful because I can carry them with me when I’m at Hen House and I need to give the shopping cart handle a quick cleaning before pushing it around the aisles to collect my essential goods — and yes, garden salsa Sun Chips are incredibly essential in these times.
And due to using rubbing alcohol with the proper alcohol concentration, along with the strong doctor’s office smell that the mixture gave off, it’s safe to say the wipes are successful with disinfecting surfaces.
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