Hand sanitizer in supermarkets

[Medievalist]

Is anyone else finding that the hand sanitizer provided in supermarkets is getting thinner and thinner? The one in my local co-op yesterday was like water - I'm sure they must be watering it down. I've gone back to using my own as I just don't trust the stuff supplied by supermarkets.

@MaxNormal

I don't use sanitiser at all, I just wash my hands.

In a shop?

I thought when my grandad said some women carry the kitchen sink in their handbags, he was joking.

I never use them.
I hate the feel and smell of it on my hands. I just say ‘no thanks’ and keep walking if people point the sanitiser out.
Just wash my hands at home.

@DamitJanet

I’ve not noticed that, but the quality between places is huge. Primarks stinks and is so sticky, puts me right off.

I don’t use Primark’s because the smell is so horrendous and lingers for ages. Made me feel physically sick when I realised it was my hands and smelled them.

Never use it. Or sanitise my trolley either. Performance hygiene and pretty pointless.

@HairyPits

I never use them. I hate the feel and smell of it on my hands. I just say ‘no thanks’ and keep walking if people point the sanitiser out. Just wash my hands at home.

I physically can’t. I have severe eczema on my hands as a result of the excessive hand washing and gel use over the past year and hand gel exacerbates it like you wouldn’t believe. Even water inflames it, though not as immediately as gel.

I’ve had some right dirty looks not using the gel. Fuck them. If they were having to rub it into open, bleeding, weeping wounds and then spend the rest of the next few days desperately trying to keep gloves and steroid creams on and avoid scratching strips of skin off they’d change their judgmental tune.

My local Sainsburys is becoming more lax with refilling the pumps of sanitiser. Their "keeping us all safe" efforts seem to be waning.

@DumplingsAndStew funnily enough our vehicle is a campervan with a sink so yes i kind of do take it with me

I don't use it either. I never know what's going to trigger a migraine. I agree the m&s one smells nice but it's a definite migraine trigger.

@RaspberryCoulis

Never use it. Or sanitise my trolley either. Performance hygiene and pretty pointless.

So true. Read back on this thread and see how ridiculous our world has become.

I always have my own , I don’t like the congestion as you go in shops anyway and I agree the consistency is always different so you get too much . If they insist you sanitise on the way in I just use mine in front of them .

@RaspberryCoulis

Never use it. Or sanitise my trolley either. Performance hygiene and pretty pointless.

I actually agree a little , I don’t touch anything that I’m not buying pay by Apple Watch and wash my hands when I get home . Saying that my dd is adamant caught Covid by handling a customers cash you may wash your hands but do others .

I tend to use my own anyway but have to say in recent weeks supermarkets seem to have stopped giving a shit of even pretending to make it look like they care

My most recent visit to a large one this weekend was interesting.

No trollies cleaned at all and no paper left in the dispensers to use and the sprays put out to use were empty or filthy looking

The hand sanitizers on the main door were empty and the one on the way into the food section literally spilled all over the floor as it was so watery. Definitely watered down as they didn't smell of anything.

Ah yes performance hygeine. All those people who previously wouldn't have bothered washing their hands after the toilet, now majorly into foisting hideous gels onto everyone in sight. It makes me laugh. My kids' school never even had soap in the toilets - I complained so many times and eventually sent them in with their own. Now, poor dds hands are like sandpaper from her teacher insisting everyone continually doused themselves in alcohol gel. Such a shame that we have to be treated like uncivilized idiots

Im in NZ and its getting thinner here as well. I dont always sanitise now. seams a waste as we have none in the community and i use a mobility scooter with.

At my school (teacher) the sanitiser has always been like this. We raised it as a concern as the kids didn't like using it and apparently it's not watered down, it's just a different type and is just as effective (though no doubt cheaper!).

Our Tesco have recently installed one of those dispensers that senses your hands underneath and dispenses a squirt without you needing to touch it. I like them!

I sometimes use it, I sometimes don't. I wash my hands when I go home. I don't think sanitising everything makes much difference. Masks in indoors spaces make sense to me. Sanitising your trolley and basket and hands not so much.

I don’t use it. I rely on frequent hand washing with soap and water.

Lots of chemicals in sanitiser. Totally unnecessary, a waste of fine alcohol and less fine plastic and that is now being shown in studies shown it’s not really on surfaces after all.

What pisses me off most is my local Asda.
They provide spray and paper towels to clean trolley/basket, all fine there. But people don't seem to realise that taking the paper towel, spraying it and THEN getting your trolley/basket is more efficient than blocking the fecking entrance by faffing around with it after you've got your trolley.
Drives me nuts!

ImAlrightThanks it does depend on where the trollies are stored. At my local Asda you would have to put the cleaner on the paper and then go back outside to find a trolley, so I can see why people don't do that. Anyway Asda now how those special trolleys that aren't supposed to need sanitising.
We use our own sanitiser and have never been challenged.
So glad I am not the only one who thinks Primark sanitiser is rank.

The really thin stuff is usually just high in alcohol and low in additional stuff to make it scented and supposedly kinder to skin. Dh gets stuff in for work that is like water, but almost gives off fumes!
I carry my own, because I hate the smell of most, and the feeling of the gloopy ones, and ds will only use one particular gel as he had sensory issues and the feel and smell of the other ones are tricky for him.
Dd2 can't use it at all, because of her eczema, she's never been challenged when out but has a letter from the Dr for school.

I don't use it, as others have said, I wash my hands before I go out.

I don’t use it and have never used it. I wash my hands before shopping and afterwards.

We were refused entry to a toy shop before Christmas as DH politely refused the hand sanitiser due to excema on his hands which like PP crack and bleed from too much use. When we said the reason why she airily replied ' well, one of our staff has that and has been told to use it and just puts up with it, anyway it's law'. We couldn't be bothered telling her it wasn't law (I hope I'm right 🙂) but I really wished I had said I wouldn't want to work for somebody who told me to do something that made my hands bleed!

We wash our hands when we get home which, I think, is what the guidance always has been.

As long as it contains about 70% alcohol it will be effective, provided you can get coverage. Some are thicker than others.

However, as we now know that Covid-19 is transmitted by air, not fomites, all this hand and surface disinfection is just a performance.

Of course it’s sensible to wash your hands frequently, but I do think that all this focussing on hand sanitisation has made us forget how it’s really spread.