Hand Sanitizers vs Soap and Water

I've often wondered about hand sanitizers and their benifits. I had one person react when I mentioned that our creams have antibacterial properties. She said that she didn't want to use heavy antibacterial products on her kids as they would not, then, build up antibodies. I assured her that there were no chemicals in our prodcucts and the antibacterial ingredients were mainly honey and royal jelly. This did get me thinking about these hand sanitizers though.

I do know that they dry the skin and I wondered if they were as effective as promoted. I'm sure that the people that make them and make money from them want us to think so and they are sure promoted heavily but I do like to do my own research.

I found a very good article on About.com with some good references. The author suggests that hand sanitizers can do more harm than good. Over use can create problems such as bacteria building up resistance to antibiotics. This can occur with antibacterial soap as well.

The other thing that kind of stunned me was that the article stated that sanitizers can often kill good bacteria that is on the skin and in the body.

Check out the article: http://biology.about.com/od/microbiology/a/handsanitizers.htm

Wash your hands with soap and water - do not use antibacterial soap. You will be better off for it.

If you have open sores, cuts or scrapes use a little bit of Thentix skin cream or Royal Bee Cream - they both have honey and royal bee jelly which are antibacterial and calendula which is a natural antiseptic. Or just put a tiny bit on after washing your hands.