Hand sanitiser sold out everywhere when news of the spread of a virus broke. It was difficult to find a single bottle in the usual places such as pharmacies. Fortunately, Malaysians are also a crafty bunch and started producing their own homemade hand sanitiser using information found online.
But even if you do have a few bottles of hand sanitiser stocked up, you may wonder, do they actually have a shelf life? It turns out that they kind of do.
Hand sanitiser does not exactly go ‘bad’, but it does lose its potency over time. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a hand sanitiser with at least 60% alcohol to be used if there is no soap and water available.
According to Life Hacker, alcohol is a volatile compound, and thus, it can evaporate easily. In other words, the hand sanitiser you’ve been using before the MCO started could very well contain less alcohol than it should to be fully effective.
How do you know whether to discard your bottle of hand sanitiser?
Each bottle should come with an expiration date. It’s usually stated that the hand sanitiser should last from two to three years from the date of manufacture. This time frame provides an estimation of when the alcohol level drops below 90% of what’s printed on the label.
For example, if your hand sanitiser is 70% alcohol, the percentage is expected to drop to 90% of that value, which would be 63% on the expiration date. It’s still an effective product, just with a smaller alcohol percentage.
Bear in mind that once the bottle is opened, the percentage of alcohol will still drop when it’s exposed to air.
How to store hand sanitiser properly to ensure its effectiveness?
Hand sanitiser should be stored away from direct sunlight to prevent alcohol evaporation. Due to the various fragrance and colours hand sanitiser now comes in, it should be kept away from young children to prevent accidental ingestion.
Hand sanitiser is also flammable, so be sure to keep it at temperatures no higher than 22 degrees Celcius.
Which is better? Soap and water, or hand sanitiser?
The best way to keep hands clean is still to wash them with soap and water. Hand sanitiser is only recommended when there’s no soap and water available. However, hand sanitiser does not work well to clean greasy or heavily-soiled hands, so wash them with soap and water at the first possible opportunity.
