Hand Washing or Hand Sanitizer?
By: Jake | October 26, 2009 | Category: Health
The men's bathroom here at the Federal Citizen Information Center has two signs reminding guys to wash their hands. The sign hangers probably should read the recent study that found men aren't as vigilant about hand washing after going to the bathroom as women are, even with signs.
Since I religiously wash my hands after going I ignored the signs until someone pointed out some inconsistencies. For instance one simple sign says wash your hand for 20 seconds and the other says you need 40 seconds to complete a 12 step hand washing process. The second sign also states that if you don't have any visible dirt on your hands, you should use an alcohol based hand sanitizer. There are now two large bottles of hand sanitizer in our bathroom for this purpose.
Unless you are a doctor, I'm not sure if a 12 step hand washing process is necessary. I did find the part about the hand sanitizer intriguing. I checked to see what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says and they suggest the 20 seconds of hand washing but they agreed that if your hands aren't visibly dirty, you can use hand sanitizer.
I find this surprising since I've had bad experiences with hand sanitizer. One winter when I was working in a restaurant the owner thought it would be a good idea to have a big hand sanitizer dispenser for the kitchen and waitstaff to use. It worked fine for a while but my and some of my co-workers hands started to break out. I still use hand sanitizer if nothing else is available, but given the choice I will always use old fashioned soap and water.
How do you clean your hands? Do you use soap and water or sanitizer?
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