Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/03/making-your-own-hand-sanitizer.html
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But filling some’s hand sanitizer with lube is funny as hell.
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checks the ethanol cupboard and the aloe vera cupboard
Damn
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Seems like a waste of perfectly good ethanol.
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Do not drink Isopropyl Alcohol. Use Scotch if you want additional flavor.
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You could always use isopropyl instead, or so-called “specially denatured” ethanol that’s spiked with a bittering agent (but NOT ordinary denatured alcohol, which is toxic).
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Good luck finding 99% isopropyl. 70% or 91% is common in supermarkets. For 99%, you’ll have to special order or go to an industrial supply.
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Indeed, anything past 91% for isopropyl or 96% for ethanol requires toxic additives like benzene to break the azeotrope. And, if you open that bottle for any length of time, it will pull water vapor out of the air and revert to 91% or 96%.
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Isopropyl alcohol and ethyl alcohol … [at] 60%-70% solutions have in vitro efficacy against murine norovirus, Ebola virus, and several coronaviruses.
Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2018 Mar;39(3):323-328
Dilution to 60-70% as suggested in the recipe is pushing the lower limit of the recommendation, so it seems wise aim for a bit more alcohol. I note that the CDC recommends, specifically for COVID-19, “an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60%-95% alcohol.”
Supermarket supplies here (Ontario, GTA), when I checked on Saturday, were well down or at zero.
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Thought of making a video of microwaving vodka and green jello, and then pulling this out at the end:
But it seemed a waste of time, jello and vodka, and someone might try it and go foom.
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“Everclear” grain alcohol from the liquor store will do it. “Rubbing” alcohol from the drugstore will not as it’s too dilute.
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I’ve been looking up DIY hand sanitizers. So many of them seem to call for aloe. That seems to be the preferred gelling agent for people who don’t trust chemistry and put essential oils into GD everything. I don’t have aloe and, though I don’t mind the chemistry stuff, am feeling lazy. Oh, and your can keep you essential oils, Karen. Not to worry, there are two decent alternatives.
Spray alcohol. Just put 70 to 91% alcohol in a sprayer and spray your hands. Do I really need to warn about not spraying around fire?
Foaming sanitizer. Mix a very small fraction of liquid dish soap into alcohol and put in a foaming soap dispenser. You may need to wash your hands afterwards, but hey, that’s not so bad is it?
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“CDC recommends washing hands with soap and water whenever possible because handwashing reduces the amounts of all types of germs and chemicals on hands.”
https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-hand-sanitizer.html
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Thanks Seamus! Good to see a post from you again.
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Surfactants do a much better job at sanitizing than hand sanitizers. Just wash ya damn hands with soap.
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Just wash your damn hands with soap!
And don’t do what Donny (aka Mike) Don’t does:
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Of course. But there are times when it is just not practical to do that and when it would nevertheless be very helpful to have some other option. Think, for example, of riding on the metro–it’s essentially impossible to avoid touching some reeeeeal nasty surfaces when you do that, and usually the best case scenario when you get off is that you’re 5-7 minutes away from a bathroom you can access without buying a soda first.
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Exactly. Think of all the places that gun has been.
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For publicly-accessible hand sanitizer be sure to put glitter in it since it’s worthless anyway.
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