Who can imagine life without hand sanitizer these days?
We toss a bottle of it into our bag or backpack before heading out on errands. An invitation to use some greets us every time we walk into a grocery store or favorite takeout spot. Keeping sanitizer handy has become so important that we’ve all seen shelves of it completely cleared of inventory, leading some of us to get it from distilleries, or even make our own.
Hand sanitizer has become something we rely on to help protect the health and safety of our families and communities, yet few of us know much about it. Let’s change that:
1. Hand sanitizer sales quadrupled in one year.
We all experienced a run on hand sanitizer in 2020. Turns out the reason for those empty shelves was that by the first week of March, hand sanitizer sales had increased by a whopping 470% compared to the same time the previous year, according to Neilsen.
2. Hand sanitizer wasn’t always considered important for good hand hygiene.
The Centers for Disease Control didn’t include sanitizer in its hand hygiene guidelines until 2002, less than twenty years ago. That’s because while hand sanitizer is certainly nothing new - its origins can be traced back five decades to the 1960s - the importance it plays in good hand hygiene wasn’t made clear until much more recently.
3. Hand sanitizers don’t clean, they disinfect.
Being safe and healthy in part means staying diligent about cleanliness. Soap and water is the most effective way to remove dirt and grime from surfaces, objects, and ourselves. Hand sanitizer however carries a slightly different role as a disinfectant, doing the very important job of killing harmful germs - including viruses and bacteria - that remain on the surface.
4. Hand sanitizer is a great backup for soap and water.
The difference between soap’s cleansing power and hand sanitizer’s ability to disinfect is ultimately what makes them perfect partners. Anytime you’re away from home and soap and water aren’t available, using hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol is a convenient way to tackle germs on-the-go. But even after cleaning with soap, using hand sanitizer adds just that extra bit of protection...not to mention, peace of mind.
5. A little bit goes a long way.
Hand sanitizer is great back up when soap and water aren’t available, and the perfect finish after cleansing. But hand sanitizers are by definition disinfectants, which means they kill all kinds of bacteria - including the good kind. That’s why we skip the harsh chemicals and synthetic fragrances and instead opt for botanical cleansers and essential oils to gently sanitize, scent, and nourish the skin. And because our hand sanitizer is 99.9% effective against most common germs, you don’t need much to get the job done.
Whether hand sanitizer has been part of your hygiene routine for decades, or just for the last year, how and why it works doesn’t have to be a mystery. Taking the time to understand the tools that help us stay clean and healthy - like sanitizer, and even hand washing - goes a long way towards ensuring that we use them properly and most effectively.
To get to know Everyone hand sanitizer better, check out our entire collection here.