While in the midst of our current pandemic, many people are panicking and trying to take the best measures to stay safe from the coronavirus. The majority of people have already taken to social distancing. Almost everyone is at home, seemingly. And markets have been swamped with people stupidly buying toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

With many stores out of stock, some people have tried looking for alternatives.

If Google Trends is any indication, a lot of exciting new things are being used to wipe butts right now pic.twitter.com/Bd58jlnHXy — Ryan George (@theryangeorge) March 20, 2020

Many people have even resorted to making their own sanitizer.

But it doesn’t hurt to question whether it’s even worth it to be that ecstatic over all of this when another viable option is right there: good old hand soap. You probably have a ton of that in storage. Even if you don’t, it’s highly unlikely that somebody’s fighting over a bar of soap.

Hand soap is probably just as effective as sanitizer, if not, even better.

What’s the difference?

Although it may not seem like it, hand sanitizer and soap get rid of germs in completely different ways.

Soap

Soap has been a common household item since ancient history. For the most part, the composition has barely changed. It consists of some form of fat-like vegetable oil or palm oil. That would then be combined with water and lye that would bond together to form what we call soap.

Washing your hands with just water isn’t very effective, as the germs cling to the greasy and oily surface of your hand. However, soap molecules have two ends, one that is hydrophilic (attaches with water) and the other being hydrophobic (attaches with the oil), which allows it to cling to the bacteria, viruses, and water. So when you wash off the lather from your hands, it removes the germs alongside with it.

However, most people don’t effectively wash their hands properly. About 97% of the time, people don’t wash correctly according to a USDA study.

One of the big mistakes that people don’t consider is that they don’t scrub their hands hard enough. Friction is necessary to snatch germs into the lather. The amount of time it should take to scrub should be about twenty to thirty seconds. It’s also important to dry your hands with a towel or air dryer, as wet hands are susceptible of catching more germs.

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Should I get antibacterial soap?

Antibacterial soap shouldn’t be necessary. Normal soap should get the job done. It doesn’t make a difference, but you can use it if you want to take the extra precaution.

Hand Sanitizer

Hand sanitizer actually takes a very different approach. It’s comprised of two main ingredients: 60% of the batch is generally alcohol (99% concentrate), and 40% aloe vera gel, which helps to moisturize your skin and to prevent cracking and bleeding from the alcohol. Essential oils are optional.

First off, please don’t try to make this at home. It is very likely that you will mess up the proportions which could leave the sanitizer too weak to do anything effective, or too strong, which will damage your skin.

Unlike soap, hand sanitizer kills the germs instead of removing it.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Which One Should I Use?

Hand soap is probably the best way to go. While hand sanitizer kills the bacteria and viruses on your hand, it isn’t known to kill all of them. That explains why you see “Kills 99% of germs!” on every label for a sanitizer.

And unlike soap, it isn’t able to just simply get rid of those leftover germs. Not only that, it doesn’t get rid of all the dirt on your hand, which could probably catch more germs in the process.

But if hand soap isn’t convenient, or if you’re traveling (which hopefully you aren’t right now), then by all means, use hand sanitizer. But it should really be used as an alternative or last resort.