I’ve got 70% rubbing alcohol but no aloe Vera.....

[MelanieFrontage]

And I refuse to buy aloe Vera gel at about £10 for 200ml.

Can I just decant my liquid into a spray bottle and use it without aloe gel?

If I do I’ll obviously have to use tonnes of hand cream but am I safe to spray the alcohol directly onto my hands?

I got some on Amazon and some at Superdrug about 400ml

Holland and Barrett

My nearest Holland and Barrett is 10 miles away and I don’t really want to go that far to find that they are out of stock.

Glycerine works too

If you have 70% don’t dilute it with anything as you need over 60% alcohol to work. Your skin will be wrecked so apply lots of moisturiser.

It will only dry your hands. I use it to clean my keyboard and phone etc.

I also read that you can use glycerine but that always felt sticky when I used it in icing so check first in case you end up with sticky hands. One article I read said you can add liquid soap, I don't know if that works though.

Have you looked for aftersun gels? A lot of those are glycerine or aloe based and I suspect they would work. Alcohol alone isn't dangerous but would be very drying.

I’m sure I read somewhere that homemade hand gel needs some water content (is aloe vera etc) in order to work properly.
But then again that could be bollocks like a lot of the things I’ve been reading over the last few days. I just don’t know what to believe at the moment!

@Belindabelle I’ve been thinking about this and I can’t get my head around it. Why would adding something to 70% alcohol make the alcohol less?
The bit that has the alcohol is still 70% isn’t it?
Flipping heck it does my head in!

Think of it like this Melanie.
You pour orange juice into a glass up to the half way mark.
The juice that's in the glass is 100% orange juice.
You then top up the glass with water.
The glass now has 50% juice and 50% water so you have diluted the concentration of the juice.

Exact same principle with your 70% alcohol and whatever you add to it.
You are diluting the concentration.

PS. Holland and Barrett sell online and will deliver to your home - for a fee - depending on how much you spend with them.

I get that, but....

There is still 100% orange juice in the glass, but I need to drink twice as much.

What I’m getting at, and sorry but I’ve been drinking 40% gin, which despite the tonic hasn’t seemed to have diluted, as far as my brain is concerned....

If I dilute my 70% stuff do I then need to put twice as much on my hands?

And if I do then what is one measure that I then need to double?

Just wash your hands! Are you in a situation where you can't wash your hands regularly? Gel is only a fallback if you aren't able to wash your hands with soap and water.

I AM washing my hands but I am also sanitising every time I go shopping I.e. I load my Tesco shop in my car and then I sanitize before driving home. That trolley has shit loads of germs on it that I don’t want on my steering wheel.

If your hands are on your steering wheel they aren't touching your face, just wash your hands when you get home. How often are you going shopping?

I touch my face a lot, I can’t help it and I’m a nail biter. I went out today on 4 different journeys.

The trolley was one example, anyway we are wayyyyyy off topic.

I’m going to spray the alcohol on my hands and trust in clarins to keep them nice and moisturised.

It is not the amount (as in the number of mls) of alcohol but the concentration of it that matters. If you water it down you reduce the concentration.

If you drink 100ml of a drink at 10% alcohol, you're getting 10ml of alcohol. At 20%, you're getting 20ml.

The solution needs to be a given concentration so that the lipid membrane in the virus is disrupted. And that's 60%. It doesn't matter how much you put in, it needs to be a given concentration.

If you have 70%, then you can add a little bit of glycerine or aloe vera, but not a lot. About 10mls to 90ml of your 70% alcohol. This should give 63%, but remember that it evaporates.

In any case, you can use the 70% directly, but not very often and moisturise more frequently.

@TheSmallAssassin what’s your assessment on the percentage of rubbing alcohol to aloe Vera?

Think of it this way. If you wanted to boil an egg you need boiling water, right? The water needs to be above 100 degrees. Let's say you need 200ml of water to cover your egg so it cooks.

If you mix that boiling water 50 50 with cold water the egg won't cook. No matter how much water is in the pan.

Same idea - you need at least 60% of the volume you have to be alcohol for it to work.

@Lweji I’m sorry and I know that I’m being really really stupid but....

If I used 70% alcohol neat and then immediately used a shed loads of moisturiser why is that different to adding the moisturiser to the alcohol?

I don’t think I can’t explain it better than the orange juice analogy but imagine the difference between your glass being 100% gin (no tonic) and how hammered you’d versus one shot of the gin with a normal amount of tonic. You are diluting the gin when you add the tonic. A sip of the G&T is less strong than a sip of the straight gin, because a sip of the G&T contains less neat gin.

Anyway, if you mix the 70% alcohol with anything it will be too diluted to be effective. I’d suggest using the alcohol neat in a spray bottle plus a tissue to clean your steering wheel. Wash your hands when you get home.

Fuck me, I thought that I was quite clever. This sort of stuff really confuses me!
Good job my employer can’t recognise me!

My DH has two masters degrees and doesn’t understand percentages/ratios either, you are not alone! Just take our word for it that you shouldn’t mix your 70% rubbing alcohol with a ton of aloe gel or after sun as it won’t be effective