Go Alcohol Free this Stoptober

Yes, it is a thing and no I’d never heard of it.  Like ‘Dry January’ which is all about recovering from the excess of the festive season, Stoptober is about staying away from Alcohol to help prepare for the, soon to be upon us, festive season.

This Stoptober we are encouraging everybody to stop using Alcohol based Hand Sanitisers!  There are many alternative water-based hand sanitiser products that have the same, if not a better bug kill rate but are much better for us to use on so many levels.

It’s ironic that on the back of every Alcohol based sanitiser it says ‘keep away from children’ yet almost every school child up and down the country is using them because this is the only option they have been told to use.

When the pandemic broke out in March the Government, Public Health England, NHS, Professor Chris Whitty the Chief Scientific Advisor were all saying to only use Alcohol Gel to sanitise your hands. Not only did they give no other guidance but the information they were giving about only using an alcohol-based hand sanitiser was factually wrong and risked the health of many. Coronavirus is an enveloped virus which is relatively easy to kill when on surfaces. They die naturally, sunlight kills them, bleach, iodine and a multitude of disinfectants are hugely effective but the only advice coming from the know it all’s was to use Alcohol Gel.

So, we did a Donald Trump and attacked them on twitter demanding that they change their messaging and confirm that more than just Alcohol gel can kill enveloped viruses on hands.  Clearly it worked because soon after they released a second statement with ‘oh you can also wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and water…’ 

No children should be forced to use 60%+ alcohol gel to sanitise their hands if it can be avoided. The number who have had alcohol poisoning since the pandemic started is catastrophic. Religious groups that make up large parts of our community also refuse to handle alcohol and not to mention it leaves your hands dry and skin prone to cracking which can cause further issues. We’ve all seen the burn marks alcohol gel leaves on the floor when it drips from the containers which is an expensive unintended consequence.

Water based hand sanitisers with independent bug kill certifications being EN14476, EN1276, EN13697 are all disinfectants. They are proven to kill enveloped viruses on surfaces and skin.

We used to make an alcohol hand sanitiser gel but when we found out that some people were drinking them, others couldn’t touch them and the skin impact meant we set about creating a product that was much nicer to use, equally effective and safe for all ages and communities.

We say STOPTOBER – ask for non-alcohol hand sanitiser wherever you go.