A standard formula for public use hand sanitizer?

Recently, I've noticed some small cuts on my hands which were hard for me to explain their existence.

They were not deep or significant cuts, but I realized they were there because every time I washed my hands with hot or warm water, there would be an intense burning.

I was confused as to how this happened, because I could not remember getting cut or putting my hand in fire, resulting in burns. It was not until I had jumped into my car after coming out of a local store and I squeezed some of the hand sanitizer which I had in my car to clean my hands, that I felt the burning sensation, this time from the alcohol in the sanitizer.

Then, it hit me that the burns on my hands were the result of the constant use of hand sanitizer from so many different places. You should have noticed by now that every establishment you enter there is someone at the entrance who encourage you to use the dispenser to squirt hand sanitizer into your hands before you're allowed to enter the store.

On the day I noticed the burns on my hands, I had gone to a number of stores, carrying out my monthly grocery and pharmacy shopping. Thinking back, I remember going into some five stores for the day and had one more to visit before my shopping adventure was completed.

Oh, and I had also gone into a restaurant that day as well, to get something to eat.

At all of those stops, each establishment had their own concoction of hand sanitizers. Some were stronger than others and some contained alcohol and others didn't. In fact, I was convinced that in a few of those places where I went that day, it seemed like the only thing they squirted on my hands was plain water. There were others that burned my hands intensely. Some smelled awful, making me question exactly what they put in that bottle.

I had never thought about it before, but the reality is that we've been under Emergency Orders for about a year and since the Covid-19 Pandemic hit our shores, we have been advised to use hand sanitizers, not just at home, but at every store, restaurant and office building we enter.

Imagine how many times you sanitize your hands in one day, especially if you go from place to place. Even at your office, where you may spend most of the day not moving around that much, you still sanitize your hands on a regular basis because you have to touch door knobs, touch other people's pens or mouse or simply have to use a phone at someone else's desk.

On a regular day, for those of you who move around just a little, you have to sanitize your hands either at the food store, at the pharmacy, at the restaurant, at the school's office, at government offices, at business offices, at convenience stores, etc. Do you have any idea just how many times you use hand sanitizer at places where you frequent?

It was that constant use of so many kinds of sanitizer that began to blister my hands to the point where warm water would burn them.

That's why some people carry their own brand of hand sanitizer around with them and use it at the entrance of the store or restaurant they're entering, allowing the security guard to see that they were sanitizing their hands. But, some security guards insists that you use the sanitizer provided by the store, in spite of the fact that you may have brought your own. Some people have outright refused and insists on using their own sanitizer which they brought with them. Now I can understand why.

Sometimes the security guard will let it go, but I've personally seen at one place in particular where if you do not use the hand sanitizer that this particular establishment provided, you could not enter that store.

I think that's taking it a bit far.

As long as individuals are sanitizing their hands before entering the store and wearing a mask, then there should be no reason not to allow that person to enter that store. But I totally understand why some people insists on using their own hand sanitizer wherever they go. It's something they know works for them, smells okay and is not hash on their hands.

Some folks have even made their own version at home, which includes Aloe Vera or some other soothing astringent added in.

I think that we should have established a long time ago, national use of a particular brand of hand sanitizer for each establishment, which would eliminate some of the concoctions which a lot of these stores are mixing and spraying on people's hands.

It would avoid the high alcohol content in some of these sanitizers; it would avoid places using some cheap, watered-down brand and it would avoid members of the public being forced to use some of those hand sanitizers that have a foul odor.

While I think that using hand sanitizers and frequent hand washing is something that we as individuals should continue even after the pandemic goes away, I can't wait to be able to walk into some of these establishments and not be subjected to so many variants of (supposedly) hand sanitizers that leaves my hands burnt and smelling funky at the end of the day.

Although, because scientists are convinced that this Covid-19 virus will be with us for a long time to come, frequent hand sanitizing at every establishment will be with us for a long time to come. However, until there is a national standard for sanitizers to be used by all stores, I think I'd just use the one I'm comfortable with, thank you.