If you wash your hands with Purell, then wash your hands with soap and water 5 minutes afterwards, did you wash off/undo the Purell? Just wondering how long the Purell has to be on your hands to kill the germs. Is it possible to wash it off?
In: Biology
You shouldn’t be “washing” your hands with Purel. Purel is for use when you don’t have access to soap/water. If you just wash your hands with soap/water, you’re fine, if you are washing them properly. (Look up how to wash your hands as a nurse/dr to learn proper handwashing technique.)
Purel is a solution that will kill bacteria WITHOUT the use of water. Rub it on your hands and let it dry. It is only during the drying process that the bacteria dies. Therefore, don’t rinse it off or dry your hands with a towel or you don’t allow the Purel to have a chance to work. Just let them dry naturally, and the bacteria dies as the Purel evaporates.
You’re getting ride of more chemicals and germs properly washing your hands with soap and water anyway, so in this situation it wouldn’t really matter….
Sanitizers must be completely dry for them to have reached full efficacy. They don’t remove heavy chemicals like pesticides or metals.
Only actually washing your hands (the movement) plus soap does that.
Purell, foam, and regular hand sanitizer are all alchohol based. In most all cases an alchohol of at least 70% is enough to kill “germs” on immidiate contact. Some take a few seconds before they die in resilient cases. However everything should be dead by the time the sanitizer dries. If you are ALSO washing your hands after, you are just wasting time. Washing your hand is always better.
If you wash your hands with soap and water, then you don’t need to use purell or alcohol sanitizer because soap and water is the best way to clean your hands for majority of things.
Alcohol works by “drying out” organisms, so as soon as it is completely dry, then it has done its job and you can wash it off your hands if you don’t want to have the residue on you…but again, if you are going to wash your hands, you don’t need to use the alcohol to begin with.
If I wasn’t clear or you have questions, please ask.
Hope this helps.
It depends on the bug. Some pathogens, like pseudomonas, are killed extremely quickly, in fewer than 15 seconds. Spore-forming bugs, like C. diff, are actually resistant to ethyl alcohol, and require a sporocide (like Peridox RTU) or mechanical action (soap and hand rubbing) to remove them.
When I disinfect a laminar flow hood before testing drug lots for sterility, I will use both alcohol and a sporocide to reduce the bug count, while wiping with lint-free cloths to further reduce the bio burden.
There’s another post where a teacher did an experiement with slices of bread in a ziplock bag and each one was like “touched after touching chromebook” “not touched” “touched after washing hands” “touched with unwashed hands” and “touched after using hand sanitizer” and it showed some really gnarly stuff for the sanitizer. Would not recommend. Just use soap and water
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