Vetted

2022-07-02 00:54:30 By : Ms. Dora Xu

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There’s a reason winter is known as cold and flu season. Because while you can definitely pick up a cold or flu any time of year, colder weather always means an uptick in the number of viral infections people suffer. And this winter, many months into the global COVID-19 crisis, the same preventive measures we use to stave off cold and flu germs will be redoubled to help prevent coronavirus infection and spread.

Beyond appropriate social distancing and wearing a mask, the best way to keep yourself and others safe from COVID-19 and other viruses is to wash your hands regularly. When that’s not possible, though, hand sanitizer products are a decent backup option. And when you use a hand sanitizing wipe—one that has a high enough ethanol alcohol content—you can make the process of cleaning and disinfecting your hands even more effective.

The physical act of rubbing a sanitizing wipe over your skin sees the double benefit of the sanitizing solution killing microbes and the wipe itself lifting germs as well as dirt, grease and other particles off the skin. Hand sanitizer wipes can also allow adults to more easily clean a child’s hands, and they have the added benefit of not leaking as an open bottle of sanitizer can do in a backpack, drawer or glovebox.

One drawback of sanitizing wipes versus hand sanitizer is their tendency to dry out if the packaging is accidentally left open, so be sure to take good care of your hand sanitizing wipes so they in turn can take care of you. (Also, don’t mistake disinfectant wipes such as you would use for a countertop, door handles or toilet as a wipe for your hands—the chemicals in these wipes can dry out and even badly irritate your skin.)

Here are some of the best hand sanitizing wipes you can order online. They all have a high enough alcohol content to effectively kill germs and bacteria, and some have added ingredients to keep hands moisturized and smelling fresh, too.

These hand sanitizer wipes from the Honest Company use a solution that is 65% ethanol alcohol, five percent more potent than the minimum guidelines recommended by the CDC. When ordered in bulk, they are quite affordable, with a 300 count order priced at $40, or just over 13 cents per wipe. Each individual packet contains 50 sanitizing wipes, a perfect amount for a parent to keep in a car or near the front door or an employee to keep in a desk, backpack or briefcase. The wipes feature a bit of aloe, too, to help prevent dryness often caused by heavy use of sanitizing products.

These Everyone brand sanitizer wipes contain just five ingredients—ethanol alcohol derived from sugar cane, purified water, a lemon peel oil extract, a coconut extract and vegetable glycerine—all of which are safe and natural. The 62% ethanol kills microbes while the lemon and coconut extracts and the vegetable glycerin help moisturize your skin and leave it nice and fresh. These wipes cost a bit more per unit than those from other brands, but they are effective and safe, mild on skin and smell great.

These Palmpalm hand wipes pack a 70% alcohol solution, meaning more microbe killings power than the solution found in many other brands. Because alcohol evaporates so quickly, that also means these are quick drying wipes, but that cuts both ways: first, your hands will be both sanitized and dry faster than with other brands, but the thin wipes also dry out themselves rather quickly, so make sure to keep the packaging securely closed when you’re not retrieving a wipe, and use each wipe quickly once it’s pulled out. Each packet in your order of 100 total wipes contains 10 individual units, so the packs are a good size to bring along on briefer outings.

Rather than using ethanol alcohol as the primary disinfecting ingredients, these hand sanitizing wipes from Wet Ones feature benzethonium chloride, an antibacterial agent frequently used in antiseptics, disinfectants, antivirals and even in anti-fungal solutions. Anyone with a negative response to concentrated alcohol solutions on the skin should consider these affordable wipes, which leave your hands feeling clean without that gritty feeling often created by hand sanitizers and smelling fresh.

This large plastic tub comes with 50 packets of hand sanitizing wipes, each of which has five wipes per pack—the perfect amount to send along with a kid headed to school or to have on hand while you’re out and about. The wipes themselves use benzethonium chloride as their microbe-killing agent and have a fresh lemon scent. They are suitable for use on the hands and the face. And the wide mouth of the hexagonal tub they come in makes it easy to grab a packet any time.

This large canister off wipes from ProCure contains 160 individual wipes, each of which pops out of the can easily, tearing away one at a time. It’s a perfect system for use in a classroom or cafeteria where lots of young hands need sanitizing, especially before a meal or after an activity where germs may have been shared. The wipes feature a potent 65.9% ethyl alcohol (ethyl alcohol and ethanol are the same thing, for the record) solution and aloe and vitamin E to prevent dryness.

These hand sanitizing wipes from Care + Issue pack a whopping 75% ethanol alcohol solution, the most potent on the roster here. They will reliably kill off 99.9% of the microbes on your skin in a matter of a few seconds of vigorous scrubbing. And while that concentration of alcohol will be drying with heavy use, some aloe vera and chamomile extracts help mitigate the drying, while lavender oil extract helps soften the harsh alcohol scent. Though designed for use on hands, given the high concentration of the alcohol content, these are also suitable for use on some other surfaces, like steering wheels, door handles, keys and more.

As the brand name rather makes clear, these hand sanitizer wipes were designed with the tender skin of babies, toddlers and young kids in mind, but of course they can also be used by adults with sensitive skin. (Contrary to the implications of the name, however, not all of the ingredients here are in fact organic, so don’t assume that’s the case.) As with many hand wipes, a 0.13% concentration of antimicrobial benzethonium chloride does the disinfecting, while a decent dose of extract from citrus reticulata, AKA the Mandarin orange, provides a pleasant scent.

A box of Care Touch’s hand sanitizing wipes comes with 100 individually wrapped wipes, so they’re perfect to hand out to visitors at your workplace, medical clinic, to a school or even just to your home. Each wipe measures a generous six-by-eight-inches, offering plenty of surface area for both hands. They use benzalkonium chloride (similar to benzethonium chloride) for their disinfecting and can be used on the skin to kill microbes or clean wounds, and can also be used for disinfecting most hard surfaces.