If hand sanitizer kills 99.9% of germs, what stops us from using that all of the time instead of hand washing?
In: Biology
TLDR: Hand sanitizer kills bacteria and viruses but it doesn’t wash it away, so it leaves the dead and living ones on your skin.
Soap and water are actually scientifically proven to be better at killing bacteria and viruses than hand sanitizer.
In addition to killing bacteria and viruses soap traps dirt and fragments of the destroyed virus in tiny bubbles called micelles, which wash away in water. In tandem, some soap molecules disrupt the chemical bonds that allow bacteria, viruses and grime to stick to surfaces, lifting them off the skin.
So while alcohol based hand sanitizers do kill bacteria by breaking down their exteriors, they don’t do nearly as good a job at washing them away from your skin.
Hand sanitizer was invented to be used only when hand washing wasn’t available. But due to it’s popularity and convenience people make the mistake of assuming that it’s better than washing your hands, which it’s not.
Sanitizer is rubbish at cleaning off things like marker ink and stuff. It kills germs but it doesn’t CLEAN things, really.
It kills the germs, but does not carry them away. so you just now have dead germs and bacteria on you
Nothing, really. The problem is that killing 99.9% of germs is usually not enough. Microbial colonies such as what you’d find on our skin can be made up of millions of individual bacteria. Wiping out 99.9% of a few million cells still leaves enough microbes to multiply and reach the same numbers after a surprisingly short time – many bacteria divide into two cells in a matter of minutes, and follow an exponential growth pattern.
The alcohol in hand sanitizers will dry your skin with excessive use. Dry skin can Crack, leaving an opening for germs. This is why most include a moisturizer in the formula.
Also, soap works through the action of detergent surfactants – ingredients that lift dirt and grease from your skin and allow it to be washed away.
A combination of uses is your most effective plan.
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