Hand sanitizer does work the way it’s supposed to, but not always the way people think or expect. For instance it’s only 99.99% effective in a lab setting. There the area is controlled, often sanitized, and capable of being kept clean on a regular basis. In real life things are a bit messier and the sanitizer will only pick up a certain percentage of the germs and bacteria that will affect the average person. Let’s face it, you’re not going to realistically be daubing your hands and fingers every single minute of the day when you’re handling items and interacting with people, otherwise you’d be better off wearing rubber gloves and turning your home into a sterile environment that didn’t allow for germs. Just kidding, none of that is really possible, at least not realistically.
The purpose of hand sanitizer is to get rid of unwanted germs and bacteria that can accumulate on a person’s hands, and at that it’s pretty effective. What happens is that the alcohol in the sanitizer basically eliminates the outer coating of the bacterial and viral cells and let’s them just fall apart, thereby becoming unable to affect the body in any way. But expecting them to take care of almost every germ on one’s hands is not realistic since oils and other materials that are commonly found on one’s hands can defeat the efforts of the sanitizer pretty easily. This is why it’s important to wash your hands with soap and water as well as sanitize if you’re really into keeping your hands clean.
The glycerol is what gives the sanitizer its gooey consistency so that it’s easier to carry and apply, while several other active ingredients are also found within to give the sanitizer the ability to work as it should not dry out a person’s skin too much. Also there are bitter elements within the sanitizer as well in order to prevent people from ever drinking it, which is gross to think about but has been known to happen in the past. During Prohibition back in the 1920’s to early 30’s people would actually take to imbibing anything if it had enough alcohol to satisfy them. I’ve heard tell of those that would boil shoe shine and distill it to get the alcohol. They tended to suffer for their habit but they found different ways to do it. One word of advice to anyone would be to not try that with this stuff.
Hand sanitizer is great to keep around, almost like a bandage if you ever need it for something, but it’s not the cure-all that people think it is for germs. It won’t just eradicate every germ that touches your hands and it won’t keep you from picking up other germs as you go about your day. People need to understand that germs and bacteria are a way of life. We’ve earned our immunity from a lot of them through generation after generation of being alive on this planet and a good number of them can’t really hurt us if we practice good hygiene.
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