Well-being notes

Hand sanitizer vs soap and water: when to use which

Washing hands with soap and water is the best way to get rid of germs in most situations. Hand sanitizer is the best way when there is no sink. The two are not rivals; a station needs both.

Key points

Soap and water remove all types of germs, dirt and chemicals; use them whenever hands are visibly dirty.
Alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol kills most germs on hands that are not dirty; use it when soap and water are not available.
Twenty seconds is the number for both: lather for 20, rub sanitizer until dry, about 20.

Hands washing under a faucet below a PURELL foam soap dispenser

What soap and water do

Soap does not kill germs so much as lift them: the surfactant surrounds dirt, oil and the germs stuck in them and the water carries them down the drain. That is why washing removes things sanitizer cannot, including norovirus, Cryptosporidium, Clostridioides difficile and chemicals like pesticides. PURELL HEALTHY SOAP foam removes more dirt and germs than ordinary soap and rinses clean, so the twenty seconds is pleasant enough that people actually do it.

What hand sanitizer does

Alcohol kills germs on contact by breaking their outer layer. A sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol, applied generously and rubbed until dry, kills 99.99% of the most common germs that may cause illness, in about 20 seconds, with no water and no towel. It does not remove dirt or grease, and it is less effective when hands are visibly soiled, which is why sanitizer belongs at the entrance, the desk and the bedside, and soap belongs at the sink.

When to wash

Before, during and after preparing food, and before eating.

After using the toilet, changing a diaper or helping a child use the toilet.

After blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing, and after touching garbage.

After touching an animal, animal feed or waste.

Whenever hands are visibly dirty or greasy, after gardening, fishing, camping or sports.

When to sanitize

On the way into the house, the office or the classroom, at the first stop by the door.

Before and after visiting someone in a hospital or a nursing home.

After the shopping cart, the gas pump, the train pole, the shared keyboard.

Between patients, between customers, between tables: anywhere a sink would mean leaving the room.

Set the station up for both

At home that means a pump bottle on the hall table and HEALTHY SOAP foam at the kitchen and bathroom sinks. At work it means a touch-free sanitizer dispenser at the entrance and in the corridor, and a soap dispenser from the same family at every sink, so one refill order covers the building.