soap – Red Lemon

I recently received a customer’s query about cleansing products. I thought I would pass on the brief response since the information would be relevant to… pretty much everyone currently. So here it is.

In relation to your inquiry about hand sanitizers and the current difficulty acquiring them during the Covid-19 Pandemic…Yes, I can make hand sanitizers. Though currently the prices have soared for both the finished product and ingredients, as many have seen an opening in the market.

Unfortunately, since the ingredient prices have risen, I would have to sell the product I make at a price, I just cannot accept. I realize that the high prices many are selling at is due to the ingredients becoming so expensive. And while I understand supply and demand, I do not feel that it is appropriate for the price of life saving ingredients to suddenly jump like this.

There are several sellers out there selling finished products at reasonable prices. Many retail stores are (though most physical store locations are often out of stock due to the high demand), and Amazon is currently working to remove price gougers of these products.

I still make and sell soap, which is actually your best defense against viruses etc.

Viable alternative options:

If you are just looking to sanitize your hands while in the day to day operations of your job where you have limited access to water these are my suggestions:

Ethyl or Isopropyl Alcohol

You can use a 70% ethyl alcohol or 70% isopropyl alcohol. These are a widely commercially available %. There are higher percentages available that would also be fine.

These two alcohols are both acceptable and are what is referred to when the CDC says alcohol solutions should be a minimum of 60% for hand sanitizing or 70% for disinfecting surfaces. https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/disinfection-methods/chemical.html

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html

Above is the reference for the CDC definition of alcohol followed by a link to their guidelines for covid-19 protection.

The reality is that you can put either of these alcohols into a small spray or other type travel bottle to carry with you as a disinfectant equitable to a hand sanitizer. They are liquid, so a spray bottle, may be the most effective package.

Please note, if you are buying ethyl alcohol (also called ethanol) make sure it is denatured. If the bottle says “rubbing alcohol” or it is commercially available in a store for cleaning purposes, you can use this. If it is drinking alcohol like Vodka, you cannot carry it with you in vehicles as a hand sanitizer, for instance in a cockpit or a car.

Perhaps more importantly for drinking alcohol, it must be 140 proof to be the minimum of 70% alcohol by volume. Most have too low of a proof to be useful for Covid-19 related sanitation requirements.

Also of note, both of these items can and often are used for cleaning electronics, but some more pliable electronic components can crack and be damaged by isopropyl alcohol.

Hand Sanitizer Base Bulk

The link below is for a wholesale company that I find very good. They are currently only selling their hand sanitizer base (just an unscented hand sanitizer that they make) at retail prices in 1-gallon jugs. They make a gel style and a liquid style.

This company, in an effort to avoid contributing to price gouging, is simply offering their product in a quantity that would be useful to many businesses. Their product meets CDC guidelines and I am sure if your company were interested in ordering from them to provide adequate sanitation options for employees, they would be happy to work with them.

https://www.bulkapothecary.com/search.php?search_query=sanitizer&section=product

If you chose to buy by the gallon from this company or any other. The solution can be repackaged into smaller containers for use on the go.

The main difference between the sanitizer and the rubbing alcohol options will be that the rubbing alcohol will smell more of alcohol and be more drying. You may need to use more moisturizer and/or drink more to keep your skin nourished. On the other hand, there are some moisturizers already built into most of the pre-made sanitizer solutions.

With any of these alcohol-based solutions (even hand sanitizer) if you are using it to sanitize a keyboard or other electronic instrument for example, it has the potential to wipe away any words that are on the item. You could wipe away the letters on a keyboard or important words on an instrument panel, so exercise caution. Or perhaps there can be a cover placed on these items that is sanitized instead.

Hope this helps,

Jacquelyn Uznanski

All links are sources that I have found to be credible sources. I currently do not get affiliate benefits from anyone clicking links I put on my site.

Good morning fellow soap and bath & body enthusiasts!

While I had planned to launch my blog this spring, I had not anticipated launching it during a pandemic.

Here I was with a list of blog topics and a handful of stories, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t work on them or post them as planned.

I was paused in my writing abilities by the growing strength of the SARS-COV-2 virus (commonly called COVID-19 referring to a novel coronavirus that became a human virus in 2019) and its hastening appearance on the global stage.

So as a result, my plans to post a series of blogs (after turning in my taxes of course) about use, benefits, how things work, recyclability… have been put off a bit.

I simply could not focus and write on these topics which I know so well. It was not where my mind was. I was thinking of the travelling of the virus and how quickly it could potentially become an issue.

Not too long after, it was a huge issue in our own back yards. We now know that even in early January, it was already here and spreading.

So, what did I do to alleviate my stress?

I stopped watching the news.

Then, I started delving into the data.

The realities of exponential growth were there for the seeing in the data, even if it wasn’t in the mainstream news yet.

I started looking into what I could do. While I couldn’t get the ingredients for a reasonably priced hand sanitizer (for those in need away from a sink) I could make soap. I ordered some materials and equipment to make more soap and get my additional products online.

Now that I felt in order on product, I began thinking about the wave of information and worked out where the good sources were.

This left me with only one thought:

I could write the info and data into my blog… in hopefully interesting and entertaining posts that inform people based on the current scientific and medical data that’s available.

And so, this is how my new blog will start off. Like Terry Pratchett when he rewrote The Carpet People…not quite what I had originally planned as I am no longer that same person today. While I will still be discussing soap and other bath and body products, I will also be sharing some information about the current world, from a science and data point of view. Since these are the topics able to flow from my fingers it seems like a good strategy for this new world before us.

My actual plan is to post bimonthly, with the occasional extra post here and there. Due to this new situation, I may end up putting up extra posts when I feel there is additional relevant data that just needs to be written and put out there right away.

I am excited to be sharing with my friends and fans old and new.

Tag: soap

Sanitize…What are the best options?

Welcome to my fabulously scented world of science and fun!