It helps kill bacteria and viruses,
and it can even be set on fire.
This is hand sanitizer.
This gooey substance
is normally meant for the hands,
but what if
we covered our bodies in it?
Specifically, by jumping into a pool
full of hand sanitizer?
Hand sanitizer is made up of a huge list of chemicals,
from things that make it a gel
to the moisturizers and lubricants.
But its main ingredient
is ethanol.
This is what kills the germs on your hands.
In order to be truly effective,
it should have over 60% ethanol.
So to kill all the deadly viruses on our bodies,
let's use something stronger.
A 95% concentration of ethanol.
Okay now that we've chosen our hand sanitizer,
what happens if we jump into a pool full of it?
As soon as you jump in,
any cuts or open wounds you might have
would immediately begin to sting.
Have you ever had a hangnail on your finger and used hand sanitizer?
Remember how much that hurt?
Now imagine the alcohol
and other chemicals attacking every cut
or scratch you might have on your body.
Ouch!
If you don't have too many of those,
you'll be able to swim around in our pool full of hand sanitizer.
But swimming in something like this
would be more like swimming in jelly than water.
This gel substance
would be a gloppy, thick mess to swim through.
And if you dunked your head into it,
it would fill your ears,
nose, and any other crevice it can make its way into.
And while you're under there,
don't try opening your eyes.
If you do,
you'll immediately feel severe pain from the hand sanitizer.
And if you don't wash it out immediately,
you could go blind.
Yeah, alcohol is not good for the eyes.
And let's hope you don't swallow any of this stuff.
If you did, it would taste pretty disgusting,
like an incredibly harsh alcohol with a strong chemical taste.
And if you drank enough of it,
you would be extremely intoxicated.
That's because a 240 ml (8 oz) bottle of hand sanitizer
contains the same amount of alcohol as about
five shots of hard liquor.
Luckily, swallowing it is avoidable.
What isn't is the damage these chemicals
would be doing to your skin while you're in there.
If you're in this hand sanitizer long enough,
it could filter through your skin and get into your bloodstream.
The reason why we can put hand sanitizer
on our hands is that they have tougher skin than other parts of our body.
The skin on places like our faces
and butts is pretty weak and soft.
So if your entire body was marinating in hand sanitizer,
it could lead to alcohol poisoning.
And we know that hand sanitizer's purpose is to kill bacteria.
But it gets rid of both the bad
and good germs.
Having small doses on your hands is OK,
but spreading it all over your body would kill
a lot of the good bacteria you have on it.
This could make you very sick, or even kill you.
And hopefully, you won't have any smokers standing nearby.
Because if they happen to drop a match or a lighter into the pool,
the hand sanitizier would instantly burst into flames,
and quickly kill you.
But if you managed to survive all this,
and made it out of the pool,
you'd need to shower immediately.
And after that, your skin would begin to feel tight and dry.
It would start to crack, and bleed,
and be incredibly painful.
Let's hope you have another pool of skin lotion to jump into.
So it's pretty clear that hand sanitizer is
only good in small doses, and
only on our hands.
Besides, if you really want to kill bacteria,
just wash your hands.
Trust me.
It's a lot safer, cheaper, and healthier.
And because washing your hands is so good for you,
why don't we try something really dumb,
and not wash them for an entire year?
That's a story for another, WHAT IF.