I can’t tell you how many times I see women in the bathroom splash some water on their hands for a few seconds, dry and go.
My husband tells me it’s a 50-50 chance that a man even hits the sink at all after using the urinal. While I know I have been called a germaphobe, this is surprising to me not to mention gross. These are extreme examples, but we can all likely use the reminder of an effective way to wash.
The CDC has a new national handwashing campaign, “Life is better with clean hands”. It may not be the catchiest, but I think their simple 5 step method of wet, lather, scrub, rinse, dry is clear and backed by science. When using soap and water to clean, studies show that the temperature doesn’t matter. It’s a myth that warm water is needed to better kill germs. In fact, warm water can become too hot and irritate skin easier.
Wet your hands with running water, rather than a bowl of standing water. You can turn off the water at this stage to save water if you want to be environmentally conscious. You then use soap on hands to start lathering and scrubbing. Soap is used in addition to water as it has surfactants that trap and lift germs from skin. Your soap does NOT have to be “antibacterial” to remove microbes from your hands. The FDA finally agreed in 2016 and stopped marketing products with triclosan to the public (this is different for health care workers).
The scrubbing of soap on your hands needs to last about 15-30 seconds according to most studies. Most global public health resources recommend 20 seconds, which is the main step most of us skip. CDC recommends singing Happy Birthday 2x in your head to get to the correct time, which is easy to remember and great. But life is short, so I usually switch the song up. Lately it’s been Mulan’s “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” intro, or the extremely catchy chorus from Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” (after all I need to check my nails). At this point, you should rinse both hands well with clean, running water, ensuring to not touch the bowl of the sink. Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry. There is a lot of conflict and lack of evidence about the drying process in hand washing and the impacts to health, but most agree: don’t use a repeat-use towel in a public space.
How to use soap and water to wash hands:
- Wet your hands
- Apply soap to hands. Lather hands — be sure to cover backs of hands, between fingers, under jewelry, and under nails
- Scrub hands for at least 20 seconds
- Rinse hands well under running water
- Dry hands with a clean towel or air
There are times soap and water aren’t available which is a great time to use hand sanitizer. Soap and water are best for many reasons such as efficacy, reducing chemicals on hands, and microbial resistance. For example, hand sanitizers may not remove grease, pesticides, heavy metals, or be effective against many illness-causing microbes (such as norovirus or c. diff).
The action of alcohol based sanitizers is dependent upon concentration, amount, and leaving it on to dry. You want a formula with at least 60% alcohol on the label. Most labels will also describe an amount of product you need to use to be effective. Hand sanitizer works well at reducing the number of germs, but usually doesn’t kill all types. So if you have the choice between hand washing or “gelling”, opt for the soap and water. But in a pinch, a hand sanitizer will still help prevent sickness and the spread of germs to others.
How to use hand sanitizer:
- Apply correct amount of product (see bottle) to palm of one hand
- Rub hands together, ensuring to get product over all surfaces of hands and fingers
- Continue to move product around hands until dry, usually about 20 secs
Check out this visual representation of the efficacy difference between hand washing and hand sanitizer. The experiment is simple and easily reproducible: a classroom handled slices of bread with dirty hands, after using hand sani gel, and after washing with soap and water. They keep an untouched slice for the controlled variable. They then let the bread hang out in bags to see what grew. The results are visually shocking!
Be an overachiever and your own health advocate by washing frequently. The CDC recommends washing before and after cooking, before eating, before helping those who are sick, after blowing nose/coughing/sneezing, after interacting with animals, after touching pet food, and after touching garbage.
To conclude this PSA: don’t forget to wash your hands! Protect yourself and your loved ones, especially this flu season.
And just like soap is important for the maintenance of your health, BRANDSOAP is important for the health of your brand! Don’t let ‘unsanitary’ marketing practices harm the well-being of your business.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen with others washing their hands? What myths have you heard about hand washing?
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