Clean Hands or Death?

Alright, I lied. I said I was going to talk about Purell hand sanitizer today, and while I am going to talk about hand sanitizer, my main target will not be Purell. We are now entering the season of cold weather and dry hands, and I'm sure we all wonder what we can do to keep our hands moisturized. Here's one thing you should not do: do not use hand sanitizer. Now, I'm a big fan of clean hands... I work in a daycare, I need to keep my hands clean. And that means washing my hands about 789,083 times a day. You would think that using a nice little hand sanitizer would protect my hands from getting dry, but here's the thing - even a "moisturizing" hand sanitizer can be comprised of over 60% ethyl alcohol. Here are some more disturbing facts that I will let speak for themselves. The facts come from the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for a generic sanitizer and the MSDS for Purell. One MSDS labels two of the main ingredients in the sanitizer as "Hazardous Ingredients". Another MSDS states that "chronic exposure can result in skin irritation and contact dermatitis." Aren't we supposed to use it every day? One MSDS contains an entire, long section about "Fire Fighting Measures". For hand sanitizer. In a work environment, the suggested PPE (Personal protective equipment) when using hand sanitizer is goggles and gloves. Gloves? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose? Here's one more quote: "After working with this product, be sure to wash before eating, smoking, drinking, or applying cosmetics." So don't use hand sanitizer to avoid the drying hand-washing process, because you'll need to wash them anyway so you don't spontaneously combust. Now you know: hand sanitizer is bad; hand-washing is good.