Yahoo News "So, My Friend Knows This Amazing Little Hand Sanitiser Brand"
Conversations are now peppered with phrases that would've left us dumbfounded four months ago. "R rates" and "air bridges" and "zoonotic": all words that seemed more at home in the 4pm Sunday Syfy films our boredom forced us to endure at the height of lockdown. But here they are, tossed freely and (semi)sagely between the self-taught epidemiologists and bread makers in one-way pubs. These brave new terms – understanding them a necessary bulwark in our ongoing attempt to fight whatever this is – apply to our new anti-Covid kits, too: face masks, rubber gloves, goggles (yes, I saw exactly one fearful shopper don a pair in my hometown Waitrose), all things underpinned by phrases that sound much like the ravings of a very suspicious Mumsnetter. Hand sanitiser is perhaps the most riddled of them all.
"It's the ethyl alcohol that's an antiseptic, that's what gets it," a friend said over another Tesco-fuelled picnic, stabbing his finger in the air to prove that he was, indeed, a Correct Man. "I've got this hand sanitiser that's full of it. It's like, identical to the stuff the NHS uses."
"Shouldn't that be saved for the NHS, then?" Such withering was inevitable.
"No, because there's is just a little bit stronger. This is as hard as it gets for civvies."
Another fellow picnicker preferred their hand sanitiser a little less military-grade: "Mine has flax seed, and manuka. It's much better for your skin to have natural antibiotics. All those chemicals are no good, no good."
"Doesn't it need at least 80 per cent alcohol?"
"I thought it was 70."
"Mine has 60."
"Wait, mine has 60?"
"Mine's from Aesop, it's lovely."
In just three minutes, this birthday picnic had turned into the Great Antibaccers Expo of 2020. Friends rummaged around in bags, pulling out bottles of their chosen hand sanitiser, showcasing it, QVC-like, in an open palm. There were ooohs and ahhhs over scents that masked ethanol's usual sting. Brows furrowed at hand sanitisers in Power Ranger shades ("bit childish"). Many tutted in a chorus of disdain for a particular Garnier blend ("too sticky"). The disagreements over the optimal mix for a Covid-killing sanitiser raged on.
So, some much-needed truth: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a hand sanitiser needed at least 60 per cent of alcohol to be effective. And, in combination with heavy-duty ingredients like benzyl benzoate, glycerin and polyacrylic acid, it makes for a now familiar, lab-like pungent smell that's incredibly hard to mask. More biting still is the heady aroma of commercial paint stripper/hand sanitiser publicly available at every restaurant, bus stop, public space and hospital waiting room. That stuff is not nice. Just one afternoon in central London without the kinder, softer, smaller bottle of my own choosing was a lesson hard learned – and one never forgotten: always pack your hand sanitiser.
Almost everyone I know has learned the hard way too. Someone at the picnic spoke of a public dispenser at St Pauls, which was a little like a petrol-based piña colada. Other anecdotal examples were less exotic: White Lightning at a Southwark street feast; toilet duck at Clapham Junction; and, perhaps the saddest of all, urinal cakes at an undisclosed pub in Euston. Which means we're all armed at all times. And brands, keen to innovate (and possibly to salvage dipping sales elsewhere) have shifted gear to the production of hand sanitiser. At first, it was charitable, as in the case of LVMH's parfums division, which donated vast amounts of the stuff at no charge to the French healthcare system. Then, when authorities got a better handle on procuring PPE, it was onto commercial, as hand sanitiser went from a key worker's essential to a civilian one.
One-size-fits-all doesn't fit us all, though. Humans, with their jarring desire to be totally unique while still exactly the same as everyone else, projected such urges onto their hand sanitiser. We all want in. We all need one that works, too. But branding matters. Scents even more. As a close friend rubbed her hands together, eyes narrowed in germ-busting, clinical satisfaction, a large proportion of that feeling was clearly gleaned from the fact that her humble sanitiser hailed from the tranquil (and temporarily closed) inner sanctum of organic wellbeing brand, Neal's Yard. She essentially confirmed it herself: "Ugh, I just can't fucking stand that supermarket stuff".
This friend likes long bike rides, sheets with dizzying thread counts and Anissa Kermiche vases. Another, a marketing analyst that likes facts and figures and Sunspel, spent approximately three minutes lauding the virtues of Dettol's instant hand sanitiser: "Kills 99.9 per cent of germs without water" he said. So did the shouty, radioactive green bottle. There was La Roche-Posay (watch buyer). There was some organic vegan hand sanitiser (into crystal healing). There was Carex Original (electoral officer that doesn't care about anything but Liverpool FC). The list went on. Almost everyone wanted a spot on the stump at this impromptu Covid-19 summit, keen to espouse their thin expertise on antiseptic formulas and chemical compounds.
For men especially, it's one of the few portable, personal cosmetics we can enjoy. Few of us carry lipsticks. We're not even especially keen on chapsticks. So in a hand sanitiser, there's a small bottle of opportunity to exercise and project a little self-expression, of how much we care about nice smells, what nice smells they may be (if we like any at all), and how well we understand the really quite important piece of kit now carried around each day. In fact, CBS reported a 1,400 per cent spike in demand for hand sanitiser from December 2019 to January 2020. We're buying more than ever.
And as for my choice? A perpetual worrier and no fuss, nervous energy Northerner? Thanks for asking. Go2 hand sanitiser: 70 per cent alcohol, which is well above the minimum, with carbomer to kill additional bacteria and aloe vera to counter carbomer's oil-stripping effects. Available at all good retailers. Mention my name.
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