Over the past year, hand sanitiser has become a huge part of our daily lives. Whether it’s used before heading into a restaurant or after exiting public transport, we’ve gotten used to applying it to our hands whenever there’s no soap or water around.
But many people are noticing that their hands are left dry and the skin cracked, which can often be painful and cause small cuts to open up. But not all hand gels cause this – in fact many of them shouldn’t.
When it comes to facilities across the public sector, whether it be schools, government buildings, or social care facilities, supplying quality hand protection is paramount to safeguarding your people.
Let’s discuss the impact of skin-drying hand gels and how to find hand gel that leaves your people’s hands feeling soft and protected and keeps them coming back.
What causes dry skin after applying hand sanitiser?
Frequent application of hand gels and even regular hand washing can leave our hands feeling dried out and cause breakages in skin barriers. In turn, this can allow germs to infect via the skin.
This happens as a result of the high alcohol content of most hand gels, both antiviral and antibacterial, many of which contain 70% ethanol and above. This high alcohol content is hugely beneficial for hand gels as its main job is to kill bacteria and viruses, and enables fast drying, making it easier to frequently sanitise on the go. But the drawback often means hands dry out much faster.
Finding high quality alcohol hand sanitisers which include added emollients is key to combating this. These added emollients will leave your people’s hands feeling soft and ensure protection against cracked and sore skin while reducing the risk of infection.
What are added emollients and what do they do?
Emollients are treatments applied directly to the skin to soothe and hydrate it by covering the skin with a protective film to trap it in moisture.
These can be found in many kinds of skin products, including, of course, alcohol hand sanitisers. When it comes to killing bacteria and enveloped viruses, they don’t affect the efficacy of your hand gels.
By keeping hands hydrated and trapping in moisture, they greatly reduce the risk of skin drying, cracks appearing, and infection is less likely to occur.
The risks of using poor quality hand gels
When it comes to finding alcohol hand sanitisers to protect your public sector organisation, it’s crucial not to compromise on quality for price. Over the past year, many ‘cowboy’ manufacturers have put questionable and dangerous products on the market, causing real harm.
In fact, over a million units of hand sanitiser were recalled in Ireland when the unauthorised product was putting people in hospitals and schools at risk of “nausea, dermatitis, eye irritation, upper respiratory tract irritation and headaches”.
Using poor quality hand gel such as this can not only damage your organisation’s reputation, but will also damage the trust your people have in you and could cause lasting harm to public health.
Protecting hands across the public sector
Finding a good quality hand sanitiser for your organisation means looking for one which which ticks the following boxes:
- Contains high alcohol content of 70% or above
- Has proven effectiveness to kill 99.9% of bacteria and enveloped viruses, and is tested by accredited laboratories to internationally recognised BS EN standards
- Is designed, developed and manufactured to robust, quality control standards
- Contains added emollients to protect against dry skin which can lead to cuts and infection
AGMA Mysogel is manufactured to ensure that all of these requirements are met, and is developed in-house by a ISO 9001 certified U.K. manufacturing company. Trusted by businesses across a wide range of industries, AGMA Mysogel keeps hands feeling protected, soft and fresh while providing effective sanitation with every application.
Learn more about our AGMA Mysogel, which conforms to EN14476 validation and contains 80% alcohol content, by downloading the free product brochure.
