Introducing – Dr. Ginger’s Hand Sanitizer!

This may be the first time in history that the expression, “Ask anyone in the world!” is not an exaggeration. You, your neighbor, your neighbor’s neighbor, and so on until we’ve wrapped around the planet and back, have heard about COVID-19. It’s the virus that stopped humans in their tracks, and as we slowly begin to leave the comfort of our shelter-in-place orders and return to the bustle of life, the invisible threat of the virus remains.

Enter stage right: Dr. Ginger’s Hand Sanitizer! A hand sanitizer packing 75% isopropyl alcohol, organic lemon, and orange peel, and coconut oil. Not only does it destroy bacteria, germs, and viruses, but it leaves your hands feeling moisturized and smelling great.

Okay, we know it’s not exactly going to save the world, and we know that alcohol-based hand sanitizer isn’t exactly a new thing either, but we asked ourselves, “Does it have to burn the nostrils and crack your skin?” We don’t think so.

Hand sanitizer as we know it has been around since the early 1990s, with some origin stories dating back to the 1950s. It was created out of necessity (the mother of all inventions), and multiple variations of hand sanitizers sprung up around the world for industries that needed clean hands but may not have had easy access to soap and water, such as manufacturing plants or rural medical clinics.

Hand sanitizer really found its spot in the market in the early 2000s after the Center for Disease Control (CDC) added it to their hand hygiene guidelines in 2002 as a possible alternative to washing hands, marking its ability to save time over traditional hand washing. But is hand sanitizer truly a replacement for washing your hands? Well, not quite, however, there is no doubt that alcohol-based sanitizers do in fact destroy bacteria, germs, and viruses.

Let’s break down the pros and cons of hand sanitizers, shall we?

For the sake of this content, we are discussing sanitizer that is at least 60% or higher in alcohol (as per the CDC’s minimum recommended guidelines), and again, ours is 75%.

Pros:

• Hand sanitizers kill bacteria, germs, and viruses. Period. Studies have proven it to be an effective weapon in the fight against germs and can be attributed to reducing the number of sick days at the office, and even in the prevention of viral outbreaks in schools.
• It’s accessible. Hand sanitizer is sold in bottles and therefore is easy to transport to areas without access to soap and water. Well, easier than running new plumbing or carrying a camping shower at all times, anyway.
• It has a long shelf life. With a shelf life of 2-3 years, however, you’re gonna love ours so much that it won’t last that long.

Cons:

• Hand sanitizer cannot be used on grime. Anything more than your natural skin oils or the droplets from a cough/sneeze, and you need to be washing your hands. Using sanitizer on grime, fluids, grease, dirt, or blood, just means you’re doing the bacteria a service and spreading it around.
• It can bolster bacteria. This is a hot topic. In the same way that going off your antibiotics too early may boost the likelihood of superbugs, strictly washing your hands with sanitizer might increase bacterial resistance to the sanitizer, creating stronger bacteria (whether it be good or bad). The CDC states that you should not entirely replace hand washing with hand sanitizers.
• It can dry out your skin quickly. Surprise surprise. Hand sanitizers contain alcohol. High octane alcohol dries incredibly quickly and will strip your hands of moisture and oils, leaving you with dry, cracked skin (hence why we put coconut oil in ours).

If the CDC says I shouldn’t entirely replace hand washing with hand sanitizer, then when should I use hand sanitizer?

It’s pretty straightforward: When soap and water are not readily available.

Have you ever found yourself using public transportation and that one person who is coughing up a lung feels the need to touch every single possible surface? Or when you pause your mental dialogue of what was on your grocery list that you definitely left in the car to think about how many people touched the self-checkout machine before you? Have you ever thought about door handles? Yeah, sanitize it up, baby.

Now more than ever, we must do ourselves and our communities service and sanitize our hands when in public spaces.

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Okay, so we’ve covered a lot of ground here, let’s recap why we think our hand sanitizer is pretty awesome.

First: We use a higher alcohol content.

With 75% isopropyl alcohol, Dr. Ginger’s Hand Sanitizer comes in at 15% higher than the CDC’s recommended minimum level (60%) to deliver that extra punch to germs and bacteria.

Second: Our formula contains organic orange and lemon peel to ensure your hands smell good, too.

And Third: It wouldn’t be a Dr. Ginger’s product without coconut oil. We’ve added some into each bottle to make sure that killing bacteria doesn’t have to mean drying out your skin.