what’s in here what’s it do and can I
make it from scratch pick the stuff it’s
on your stuff ingredients now you might
already know that the ingredient in here
that kills germs is ethyl alcohol or as
we purist chemists like to call it
ethanol which is exactly the same
molecule that gets you drunk but you
cannot sanitize your hands with vodka or
almost any other liquor beer or wine
because the ethanol concentrations are
just too low in the stuff you drink a
hand sanitizer needs to be in the 60 to
95 percent range to effectively kill the
germs that make you sick so you just
dilute your pure ethanol down to I don’t
know 70% and there you go hand sanitizer
except we consumers are needy not only
do we want our products to work we also
want them to be convenient imagine
trying to apply a completely liquid
free-flowing hand sanitizer when you are
out and about so not safe it’s in the
pants
we also hate dry skin and unfortunately
alcohol is really good at drying out
your skin and is it that we’re not
enough we’d also like our products to
smell nice like these flowers or and
these are all actual hand sanitizers
that people buy marshmallow pumpkin
latte fresh sparkling snow white peach
Chardonnay and I less than three glitter
and even though we want our sanitizer to
smell delightful
we also wanted to taste terrible so the
people who cannot get alcohol legally or
who want literally the cheapest alcohol
possible don’t drink sanitizer instead
so that’s why hand sanitizers are not
just ethanol and water so let’s look at
what else is in here okay so we got our
fo alcohol 70% we knew that
Amino methyl propanol and fragrance or
as the French say buffa now naturally my
first step was to call the manufacturer
and ask them what each ingredient does
but they do not disclose that
information so we’re going to make some
educated guesses like a chemical
detective luckily we have clues now on
the manufacturers website they say that
they add four skin conditioners to
prevent the drying effects of alcohol
they also say that they add bitter
unpleasant tasting chemicals to prevent
people from drinking this as you know
like alcohol all right so the
conditioners that’s actually the easy
part
because kapralos glycol glycerin
isopropyl myristate and tocopherol
acetate which by the way is chemically
very similar to vitamin E are all pretty
widely used in cosmetics as lubricants
or thickeners or humectants which help
retain water the gel is also easy
usually if you see the word polymer in
the ingredients list of a gel that
polymer is what makes the gel the gel
okay so we’re left with isopropyl
alcohol amino methyl propanol and
fragrance now amino methyl propanol is
used as a pH adjuster but it’s also said
to have a faintly amine like odor now a
means generally smell like fish or decay
so that could be art please don’t drink
me chemical isopropyl alcohol on the
other hand does not smell bad but it is
said to have a faintly bitter taste so
that could be it
and then there’s fragrance and that
could smell good or taste bad we’ll
never know
blah but now that we’ve mostly figured
out what’s in hand sanitizer and how it
works I’m gonna try and make my own from
scratch using only natural ingredients
I’m going to start with ethanol this is
99% and to make it smell delightful I’m
going to add rosemary essential oil now
here is where things get a little bit
complicated in the hand sanitizer you
buy at the store I think the gelling
agent is acrylate C 10 to 30 alkyl
acrylate cross polymer which to my
knowledge has no natural equivalent or
at least no easily findable natural
equivalent now the two most common
natural gelling agents are gelatin and
agar and my first thought was I’m going
to use gelatin and make hand sanitizer
jelly but then I thought maybe adding
99% ethanol to gelatin which is a
protein would just basically cook the
protein in the gelatin with the alcohol
so I thought I’ll try agar instead and I
have no idea if it’ll work but there’s
only one way to find out
we’ll let it set and see what happens
no the the agar just came out of
solution and the ethanol water mixture
is just floating on top and it’s not
even remotely gel like it looks just as
liquid as when I poured it in so that
was a failure
I think 70% alcohol is just too much
alcohol for the agar to gel yes this
would probably sanitize my hands just
fine but it’s so liquidy I might as well
just mix alcohol and water and then I
wouldn’t have the weird egg white mess
at the bottom so I give this recipe a
zero a big ol zero out of ten and if you
guys have suggestions on how to fix it
or help me even get to a one out of ten
they would be greatly appreciated let me
know in the comments or tweet at me yeah
you
make it from scratch pick the stuff it’s
on your stuff ingredients now you might
already know that the ingredient in here
that kills germs is ethyl alcohol or as
we purist chemists like to call it
ethanol which is exactly the same
molecule that gets you drunk but you
cannot sanitize your hands with vodka or
almost any other liquor beer or wine
because the ethanol concentrations are
just too low in the stuff you drink a
hand sanitizer needs to be in the 60 to
95 percent range to effectively kill the
germs that make you sick so you just
dilute your pure ethanol down to I don’t
know 70% and there you go hand sanitizer
except we consumers are needy not only
do we want our products to work we also
want them to be convenient imagine
trying to apply a completely liquid
free-flowing hand sanitizer when you are
out and about so not safe it’s in the
pants
we also hate dry skin and unfortunately
alcohol is really good at drying out
your skin and is it that we’re not
enough we’d also like our products to
smell nice like these flowers or and
these are all actual hand sanitizers
that people buy marshmallow pumpkin
latte fresh sparkling snow white peach
Chardonnay and I less than three glitter
and even though we want our sanitizer to
smell delightful
we also wanted to taste terrible so the
people who cannot get alcohol legally or
who want literally the cheapest alcohol
possible don’t drink sanitizer instead
so that’s why hand sanitizers are not
just ethanol and water so let’s look at
what else is in here okay so we got our
fo alcohol 70% we knew that
Amino methyl propanol and fragrance or
as the French say buffa now naturally my
first step was to call the manufacturer
and ask them what each ingredient does
but they do not disclose that
information so we’re going to make some
educated guesses like a chemical
detective luckily we have clues now on
the manufacturers website they say that
they add four skin conditioners to
prevent the drying effects of alcohol
they also say that they add bitter
unpleasant tasting chemicals to prevent
people from drinking this as you know
like alcohol all right so the
conditioners that’s actually the easy
part
because kapralos glycol glycerin
isopropyl myristate and tocopherol
acetate which by the way is chemically
very similar to vitamin E are all pretty
widely used in cosmetics as lubricants
or thickeners or humectants which help
retain water the gel is also easy
usually if you see the word polymer in
the ingredients list of a gel that
polymer is what makes the gel the gel
okay so we’re left with isopropyl
alcohol amino methyl propanol and
fragrance now amino methyl propanol is
used as a pH adjuster but it’s also said
to have a faintly amine like odor now a
means generally smell like fish or decay
so that could be art please don’t drink
me chemical isopropyl alcohol on the
other hand does not smell bad but it is
said to have a faintly bitter taste so
that could be it
and then there’s fragrance and that
could smell good or taste bad we’ll
never know
blah but now that we’ve mostly figured
out what’s in hand sanitizer and how it
works I’m gonna try and make my own from
scratch using only natural ingredients
I’m going to start with ethanol this is
99% and to make it smell delightful I’m
going to add rosemary essential oil now
here is where things get a little bit
complicated in the hand sanitizer you
buy at the store I think the gelling
agent is acrylate C 10 to 30 alkyl
acrylate cross polymer which to my
knowledge has no natural equivalent or
at least no easily findable natural
equivalent now the two most common
natural gelling agents are gelatin and
agar and my first thought was I’m going
to use gelatin and make hand sanitizer
jelly but then I thought maybe adding
99% ethanol to gelatin which is a
protein would just basically cook the
protein in the gelatin with the alcohol
so I thought I’ll try agar instead and I
have no idea if it’ll work but there’s
only one way to find out
we’ll let it set and see what happens
no the the agar just came out of
solution and the ethanol water mixture
is just floating on top and it’s not
even remotely gel like it looks just as
liquid as when I poured it in so that
was a failure
I think 70% alcohol is just too much
alcohol for the agar to gel yes this
would probably sanitize my hands just
fine but it’s so liquidy I might as well
just mix alcohol and water and then I
wouldn’t have the weird egg white mess
at the bottom so I give this recipe a
zero a big ol zero out of ten and if you
guys have suggestions on how to fix it
or help me even get to a one out of ten
they would be greatly appreciated let me
know in the comments or tweet at me yeah
you
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