Handwashing—What Works Best?

Handwashing is the first line of disease defense in many cases. From Covid to flu and many other viruses and bacteria, hand care prevents or introduces these potentially dangerous illnesses.
Starting with the fact that most people do not wash their hands long enough to be considered clean and effective, the ways to wash and clean hands come into play:

• Soap and water
• Hand Sanitizers
• Wet wipes

Where we wash hands often translates to At-Home and Away-From-Home. Soap and water cleansing works well, according to some who study this aspect. However, it’s more complex than you think. Rubbing hands under water alone has a beneficial effect. On the other hand, a bar of soap facilitates, with its slipperiness effect, while a grimy bar of soap has the potential to negate the effort. The hand rubbing-soap combination is a “removal” process.

Daniel Engber writing in The Atlantic says: “Research finds that soap is good at cleaning things. At least 4,000 years of history suggest the same. Soap works because its structure mixes well with water on one end and with oils on the other. The latter, hydrophobic side can hook into, and then destroy, the membranes that surround some microbes (though norovirus isn’t one of them). Molecules of soap also cluster up in little balls that can surround and trap some germy grime before it’s flushed away beneath the tap. And soap, being sudsy, makes washing hands more fun.”

Note: some industry developers have worked with soapy additives more in recent years.

Asserts Engber, “You know what works better than hand sanitizers or QACs at getting rid of actual human norovirus? I’ll be you do! It’s soap. Or maybe one should say, it’s washing up with soap.”…the benefits of soap and water are mechanical in nature.

What about contaminated water? According to Engber in The Atlantic, some research shows that “washing up with soap and contaminated water is beneficial too. Soap: it really works!”

Engber, also notes that it only works to a point. If a household were affected with a case of norovirus, you could opt for soap-and-water handwashing plus additional efforts since “norovirus is so contagious.” Cleaning in the house with chlorine or according to Katherine Wu, in this case, “Bleach is my friend right now,” says a pediatrician at Yale School of Medicine, “It’s one of the few tools she has to combat norovirus, the nasty gut pathogen…”

“Even the old Covid standby, a spritz of hand sanitizer, doesn’t work against it (norovirus)—the virus is encased in a tough protein shell that makes it insensitive to alcohol.

“… flu and RSV, two other pathogens that have bounced back to prominence…direct contact may not even be necessary when the virus becomes aerosolized; toilets, especially lidless ones can send out plumes of infection.”

Ingredients in Question

Engber in The Atlantic story says about ingredients, “none (of them) is all that good, and some are extra bad” in keeping hands free of certain pathogens. He writes about President Trump’s use of Irish Spring hand soap and his attachment to hand liquid sanitizer. “This would have helped keep him free of certain pathogens, but not all of them.” He says that “quats” and benzalkonium chloride are found in many standard disinfecting products for the home, but may be “flat out useless against norovirus in particular. Bleach has worked ‘pretty well’ against virus in the laboratory, but human-norovirus is ‘far more resistant.’”

Wet Wipes Offerings

Design of wet wipes makes all the difference. Some contain bleach, alcohol and other additives for targeted “kill times.” Surface cleaning by wipes, as well as cleaning products for hands, combine to make a positive impact. Being careful to choose which wipes are targeted to hands or to surfaces, consumers can keep their homes prepared. In hospitals and health care settings, disinfecting to kill viruses, germs, Hepatitis B and other pathogens is a focus on counters, carts, exam tables and equipment. Consumers also have their targets in kitchen, bath and other key areas such as bedsides.

Targeting cleansing and disinfecting for hands or surfaces is crucial to positive outcomes. Informing customers of what does what is also a necessity. Because of misunderstandings in areas such as “flushability” in the past, and current improved products and claims, the industry is better positioned to meet goals in the cleaning-cleansing world.