It's hard to
believe that your hands actually harbor up to 10 million bacteria at this very
moment! If these germs do not pose a health threat, they will readily reduce
the disease-causing bugs and lower your immune system. Most of us do wash their hand frequently, maybe
some of us didn’t. In facts, frequently wash hand can effectively prevent
symptom affected by the bacterial or germ or spreading illness. It is a very
healthy habit to keep ourselves away from diseases. There is a lot of hand
cleanser in market, not only many types but brands too. For example, bar soap
and sanitizer. Soap and water is the preferred method for keeping your hands
clean. However, if soap and water are not available, hand sanitizer, which
doesn’t need any single drop of water, containing 60% alcohol is recommended.
Use only sanitizer alone will do make your hand clean enough. There are 2 types
of sanitizer, one with alcohol-based and the other without. There is some steps
of “How to wash your hand with alcohol sanitizers".
Sanitizer which contains alcohol could kill 99.9%
of bacteria in just 15 seconds. Alcohol free sanitizer still kills germs and
giving extra-long lasting protection time. On the other hand, soap removes microbes from our hand.
When we look into the ingredient of making alcohol
sanitizer, alcohol is the main ingredient for making it. Alcohol is an organic
compound, which is the hydroxyl functional group (-OH) bound to a saturated
carbon atom. Every organic compound is special, like alcohol, if without the
–OH group bound to the carbon atom then it is not alcohol, only consider as an
alcohol when the functional group is attach to the carbon atom.
Ethyl alcohol, one of the examples of active
ingredient for making alcohol based sanitizer. Besides that, there are other organic compounds such as aminomethyl propanol and isopropyl alcohol. Other than that, benzalkonium chloride is also another FDA-approved ingredient in various types of hand sanitizers. Although it is not an alcohol, it works to kill bacteria and viruses on the hands.
Other active ingredients in hand sanitizers...
Humectants (i.e. Glycerin and Propylene glycol) - To prevent dehydration of your skin.
Emollient (i.e. Isopropyl myristate, aloe vera and tocopherol acetate, synthetic vitamin E) - Naturally made from substance found in nutmeg, coconut oil, some animals fats.
Emulsifiers - Consists of carbomer and amniomethyl propanol, keeping other ingredients from separating and thicken the hand sanitizers into gel-formed.
As conclusion, hand sanitizers are designed by professionals to make human's life easier and more convenient. It can be said to be a portable disinfectant, since it contains alcohol which functions to kill bacteria in most ways.
