Not every hand sanitizer is effective in fighting Covid-19

Some hand sanitizers manufacturers are making  false and misleading claims on their label that their products kill 99.99% of illness causing germs.

Washing your hands with water and soap remains the best way to protect yourself from getting Coronavirus. However if you need to use a hand sanitizer in some instances where you can’t wash your hands please make sure that your hand sanitizer contains at least 60% of alcohol.

Hand sanitizers using benzalkonium chloride instead of alcohol  might not protect you effectively despite what they claim on their label according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Using the product might be better than not doing anything but non alcoholic hand sanitizers will not kill the germ but merely reduce its growth.

Purell and Germ-X are two of the main manufacturers using benzalkonium  and their alcohol free products have been flying off the shelf as most consumers don’t know the difference.

Prices are also going thru the roof on these items. Purell hand sanitizer wipes that do not contain alcohol have seen their prices going from $11.88 to $199.99 recently on Amazon. They are currently out of stock.

Germ X alcohol free foaming hand sanitizer is also out of stock on Amazon after reaching a high at $49.95 for a bottle.

A Purell  6 ounce bottle of alcohol free sanitizer was selling at $55 on eBay.

Some websites are circulating home made recipes to make your own hand sanitizer with alcohol. Again if you are considering using you vodka or your reserve of whiskey  to create homemade hand sanitizer it is not going to work either as it contains less than 60% alcohol.  According to the World Health Organization you need 96% ethyl alcohol to make your home made hand sanitizer.