Alcohol Free Hand Sanitizer

I've always been a little bit hesitant to squir the alcohol based hand sanitizers onto my kids' hands, particularly in light of several recent emails I was forwarded detailing children becoming violently ill after ingesting the stuff (read more about the dangers of hand sanitizers here).

Although I like the after effects of hand sanitizer--less germs and illness spread throughout the family--I hate the risks, especially to my curious 2 year old who gets into EVERYTHING.

I recently received a free sample from CLEANpHirst of Aloe Up Alcohol Free Foaming Hand Sanitizer. I was intrigued because of the simple fact that the product is alcohol free, but I wanted to do some research to learn more about the safety and effectiveness.

After Googling for a bit, I learned the active ingredient Benzalkonium Chloride is often used in nasal solutions, cosmetics, and as a topical antiseptic. All the research I found shows Benzalkonium Chloride to be a very effective and safe antimicrobial, and there is ongoing research to test for any associated allergy and asthma link. It seems to be well tested and rather safe overall, but it is not meant to be ingested in large quantities, so it is still better to keep ALL hand sanitizers out of reach of children, just to be safe.

The Aloe Up website says:

• Protects for 30 minutes after application (Alcohol based stops working after 10 seconds)

• Unprecedented efficacy with a 99.999% kill rate on Staph (3 times more effective than alcohol based hand sanitizers)

• NSF-E3 approved (For food service and preparation)

• 125 applications compared to 39 for gel products (2 oz. container)

• Non irritating, Non flammable, Biodegradable

• Will not leave gel agents on the hands that can harbor bacteria

• Moisturizes while it protects

• Tested and FDA complaint

Aloe Up has a very light, clean herb/soap fragrance and did not dry out our skin.

Two things especially impressed me. One--the formula keeps working to kill germs for 3o minutes after application (wow!), and two--there is no chance of accidental alcohol poisoning in my kids.

Although I will still continue to keep this hand sanitizer out of reach, I will be much less concerned when I squirt some onto the palms of my kids. I appreciate companies like CLEANPhIRST trying to reformulate products to make them safer for families.