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My husband is an elementary school teacher and if there’s one thing that they keep around in abundance in the classrooms, it’s hand sanitizer.
If you talk to him, he’ll tell you that it’s a total necessity, but I’ve learned to try to avoid hearing his germ stories from school. In any case, they are always well stocked with hand sanitizer!
Because of this, we recently found ourselves the new owners of a LOT of hand sanitizer. I’m talking, A LOT! But I promise this isn’t one of those stories about a disgruntled worker who brings home all the office supplies.
Here’s what happened: his school district made a deal with a company to use their- and ONLY their- brand of hand sanitizer this year.
So guess what my husband brought home?
If you guessed a HUGE bag of partially used hand sanitizer bottles, then you’d be correct. They were cleared from his classroom. All of it had to go under the new deal. My husband brought it home because it would’ve been a waste to just throw it all away!
But there’s only so much hand sanitizing you should do with hand sanitizer.
One little bottle can last a looong time. We keep some in each car and purse/bag for emergencies when we are away from home and need to clean our hands but don’t have access to soap and water. We try not to use it too much because there’s the issue that it can dry out your skin and it doesn’t differentiate between killing bad germs vs. good germs.
Truly, at the rate that we use it, we’d still be going through this bag of hand sanitizer in another decade from now. If we only used it for our hands…
And I thought to myself, I wonder if other people have figured out some additional uses for hand sanitizer.
Sure enough, google didn’t disappoint.
Here are some of the most promising options that I found. I tried a few of these out and have been pleasantly surprised with the success!
Uses for Hand Sanitizer
- Cleaning screens/appliances (cell phone, sunglasses, windows, mirrors, refrigerator, dishwasher, etc):
This is my new favorite thing to use it for. It works great for wiping down cellphones -screen and all, cleaning bathroom mirrors for beautiful streak-free results, shining the shower stall glass door, and keeping eyeglasses smudge-free.
Replaces window cleaner, shower cleaner, glass cleaner, clorox wipes, etc - Cleaning white boards:
We have a large white board in our basement for our daughter to use. It gets covered in expo marker pretty quickly and it’s not uncommon for me to go a couple of months before deciding it’s time to wipe the whole thing down. The hand sanitizer makes it quick and easy even when it’s been there awhile! I cleaned it today in just 8 minutes while stopping to take pictures. And there’s no smeary colors left behind.
Replaces white board cleaner - Removing glue, sticky residue:
I haven’t tried this yet, but it makes sense to me. Hand sanitizer on a towel is kind of like a homemade Clorox wipe.
Replaces goo gone, clorox wipes - Hair gel:
Supposedly, if you’re in a pinch, and you’ve run out of hair gel, you can use a dab of hand sanitizer to get you through the day.
Replaces your brand of hair gel - Paint stains:
Replaces paint remover - Pimples:
Since hand sanitizer can be drying to skin, I can see how it could help dry up acne as well.
Replaces acne treatments - Itchy bug bites:
Replaces itch creams - Removing stains from clothing: My daughter had gotten strawberry juice on some bed sheets so I tried rubbing hand sanitizer on it and it actually got it out! Remembering this tip could really come in handy when you spill something on your clothes when you’re away from home.
Replaces stain remover
So there you have it.
Hand sanitizer can be used in place of many cleaning supplies and other products you have in your house.
Now, I wouldn’t go out and buy hand sanitizer instead of those other products, but if you run out of the product you need, then hand sanitizer can come to your rescue in a pinch!
