Is It Safe To Use Vodka As Hand Sanitizer?

You might have heard that using alcohol, like vodka, will kill the coronavirus and destroy germs is the same as using hand sanitizer. But is it true?

There are currently a lot of recipes floating around where people have used alcohol to make their own homemade hand sanitizer. Moreover, some distilleries are actually providing their alcohol for the makers of hand sanitizer because of the high demand.

So while this can be true, you have to understand that for hand sanitizer to be truly effective, it needs to be at least 70% alcohol by volume, in that particular construct. Just pouring alcohol onto your hands is not necessarily any good.

There are vodkas out there that go up to 95% alcohol, which would be effective, but most of the vodka that you’ll see is only 20 or 30%, which won’t disinfect.