I am generally not a fan of the conventional, waterless hand sanitizers and anti-bacterial soaps that are so popular right now. They are full of chemicals and IMO they go overboard. Frequent hand washing with soap and water will do the trick usually but hospitals, doctor’s offices, and schools all seem to be taking the lazy path and utilizing waterless hand sanitizers instead. Also, these hand santizers have the equivalent of 124 proof alcohol. That is more alcohol than vodka and 3 ingested squirts could be enough to cause alcohol poisoning. Yikes!
My son had to have two bottles of hand sanitizer to go to school. I had to buy or they would and then charge me. Luckily they accepted Clean Well hand sanitizers which use essential oils from plants to kill bacteria.
There will be times when soap and water isn’t at hand though so I even can see the benefit of hand sanitizers…at least the safe and more natural ones. When I take my kids to the play center at the mall for instance I bring some, also I take some to Chuckie E. Cheeses. This past week with my illness we all used them to see if I could spare my kids getting strep throat…so far so good. We tried a few new products actually from an online store called For My Kids. The On-the-Go Hand Sanitizeris an all natural germ fighter. You just spray, rub, and go. It smells heavenly with a blend of witch hazel, lavender, eucalyptus, and sweet orange essential oils. The spray has antiseptic, antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. They make my hands feel energized and refreshed.
I have also been using their Vinegar of the Four Thieves, which is a centuries old formula that has been used to prevent contagious disease. I had heard of it before but I had never used any or made any of my own. You can use it everywhere you would use disinfectants, like those horrible smelling ones from Clorox.
The For My Kids formula contains a blend of organic ingredients: lavender, peppermint, rosemary, rue, sage, wormwood, camphor, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, garlic, and calamus cold-infused for six weeks in white distilled vinegar. All this week I have been using it to spray doorknobs, the telephone mouthpiece, cutting boards, my son’s highchair, and even our bedroom linens. I think it smells pretty awesome too. My mom picked up my phone to use and asked why it smelled like steak sauce. It does kind of remind me of A1 steak sauce, LOL.
What I liked the most about these products though was that they came in a nice cobalt blue glass bottle. I can use these bottles for a long time to come around the house and no plastic and no waste is a HUGE bonus. They last a long time and they are very affordable in price too.
Safe, natural, and eco friendly…what more could I want?
Thanks for posting a more natural alternative. I think we go over board with the hand sanitizing as well. There are a host of bacteria that love on your skin, that help you, and using hand sanitizers kills the good ones as well as the bad ones. I had constant issues with thrush as a result when my twins were little. I nice, natural product like you have posted is better, or just an organic soap…and regular hand washing.
I agree with you and Casey: simply washing hands with soap is enough. I’m more afraid of the chemicals in traditional sanitizers than I am of the germs they are killing. I know a lot of mothers who rely on these products to sanitize themselves after changing diapers. If it’s impossible to wash your hands after a diaper change, these alternatives you mentioned sound like a good option!
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Thanks for writing this recommendation. I will consider buying some once my current stock of hand santizer is empty. I really dislike disposing of the cleaners I have been using just to switch to something greener and healthier. I wish there were an easy way to donate half used products. I might call the women’s shelter in our town but I suspect that half used products wouldn’t be appreciated. On the plus side, I haven’t bought any cleaners for quite awhile. Money saved. Mostly, I now using just dish soap (7th Generation) and water to clean most everything. Love you blog!
Aloe Vera is another natural alternative. It’s also cheap. Fruit of the Earth sells big bottles of it for about a dollar, you can buy it in travel size bottles as well and contains zero preservatives. It’s so safe to digest that some people actually drink aloe vera juice for it’s healing properties. I used to carry it around in my diaper bag to use after messy diaper changes, just in there wasn’t a sink around. I’m not very germ-a-phobic though. My daughter has never gotten sick, even after playing around with snotty nosed kids.
Nice tips! I refuse to use anything with Triclosan because of the damage to the environment and its nice to know these products are available.
Thank you for posting this as an alternative hand sanitizer. As a former teacher, I used purell in my classroom like it was going out of style. Then I began to read about all of the concerns linked with the alcohol and hoped for something better in way of hand sanitizers. That’s when my husband and I found a new technology and started this company called Prefense. We are just getting off the ground and hoping to spread word to moms and moms to be out there. Prefense is unlike any other hand sanitizer on the market, it lasts 24 hours with just one application, it is FDA approved, and it kills bacteria, viruses and fungi on contact. The best news is it is 100% safe for kids and infants, and 100% ALCOHOL FREE!!! So, spread the word and feel free to ask me any questions! Our website is http://www.prefense.com
In the absence of soap and water I use an Anti-Viral Hand Sanitizer as H1N1 Influenza A is a virus (swine flu) these are the only kind that are effective against swine flu. I have just started to use a product called Mentholatum responsebeta it was the only Anti-Viral product on the shelf at Boots. Prevention is better than cure I guess. Had no horrible alcohol smell..bonus! It is suitable from children over 1 year old.