Hand washing/sanitising

[londonscalling]

Advice please ...

As a family we are using hand sanitiser a lot at the moment, as well as washing our hands.

However, we are struggling to easily get hold of more antibacterial hand sanitiser.

If none of the family are going out of the house/garden, is it necessary to keep sanitising our hands? I only ask as I'd like to keep what sanitiser we have for when we do have to go out to the shops.

Thanks.

I think that soap and water is pretty good too. I use that a lot.

Personally, I find hand sanitiser stings my hands, so if I use it all the time they go sore and cracked. So I just use it two or three times a day when really necessary and just good hand washing otherwise.

I only use hand sanitizer when out and about which is never right now.

I will be saving it for shopping once I get desperate enough to leave the house

I've been trying to get it for 3 weeks now. Good luck

Save the sanitiser for when you go out. Soap and water is more effective than hand gel, it’s really odd that people have started using it instead of hand washing and that people isolating at home are using so much of the stuff!

Back this up with your own research (I’m surprised you’ve not googled it but my understanding is that soap and water break down and then wash away the germs while sanitizer just kills most of them but obviously they remain on you.

Only use hand sanitizer if I'm out (not going anywhere at the moment) and can't easily wash hands. And we just wash hands as normal now at home, so after the toilet, before food, being in the garden etc

I haven’t got any sanitiser but, like others, I understand that soap and water should be fine, especially on lock down. I need more hand cream though

Thorough hand washing is fine if you are at home. Like other posters have said, save the sanitiser for when you need to leave the house and don't have easy access to soap and water.

I don't use sanitizer in the house, just for going out, which obviously isn't often.

You can make your own though, my husband did from a recipe online. I think it was aloe Vera gel, tea tree oil abs some sort of medical alcohol that he got at the pharmacy. Worth looking at for the long term because now we have loads of the stuff!

As PP have said:
Proper hand washing is better than sanitizer.
Using sanitizer in addition to washing is just a waste of sanitizer.

Use the gel only if you're out, as a temporary measure till you can get home and wash properly.
I'd like to keep what sanitiser we have for when we do have to go out to the shops. is exactly what everyone should be doing.

Hand washing is far superior to hand sanitiser.

Hand sanitiser should only be used when you don’t have access to hand washing.

Thanks everyone. Really appreciated.

And remember coronavirus is just that, a virus. "Antibacterial" is irrelevant, just get what soap you can. Liquid soap is still a bit hard to find but supermarkets seem OK for bar soap now.