Why wash your hands

The reason is simple. It helps you avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others.

Everyone has microbes on their hands. Some of these microbes can cause a disease. These we call germs.

When washing your hands, you reduce the number of microbes on your hands and with that the germs too.

Lower numbers are easier to fight off.

You don’t need special soap

For normal household situations there are no studies that show that antibacterial soaps work better than other soaps.

You don’t need warm water

For normal household situations there are no studies that show that warm water and soap reduces microbes on your hands better than cold water and soap. But yes, It does make it more comfortable.

Wash your hands for 20 seconds

Make sure you also do the back of your hands, in between your fingers, on top and tip of your fingers and in between your thumb and pointing finger. In household situations washing your hands longer than 20 seconds has not shown much better results unless your hands were very dirty in the first place.  

Rinse your hands after washing

Rinsing lifts the soap that grabbed the microbes and dirt from your hands.

Touching Taps

There are no studies showing that touching taps to turn them off makes you sick. If you are concerned, wash and rinse the taps while washing and rinsing your hands so they are just as clean when turning them off.

Dry your hands

You do need to dry your hands after washing. Microbes cling and grow in moist environments. Use a clean towel or electric hand dryer to dry your hands.

For the next important step in hand hygiene please see our blog post “4 ways to dry your hands – our guide to doing it properly”

Provide an electric hand dryer in public washrooms

We sell electric hand dryers. They are more economical and a lot better for our environment. Cotton towels need to be washed after every use. Paper towels are expensive, can’t be recycled, cost trees, make washrooms messy and require frequent attention.  

Resources

Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has written an elaborate blog on this.

Our Australian government has a good blog too.

Since the 1^st of November 2019 The Australian National Hand Hygiene Initiative is being coordinated by The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. This site is for health professionals.

MHMRC has a good poster on how to wash your hands