SCJohnson’s Cutan Foam Hand Sanitiser takes the test. It has been scientifically tested to Kill 99.999% of transient bacteria. What is the importance of this kill rate? Unknown to most, we live in a sea of micro-organisms. Bacteria, the most primitive of all living cells, have lasted on the planet two thousand times longer than human beings and most prevalent with humans having 10x more bacteria living on the human cells. To keep a track of these numbers for the microbiologists who study them they have used exponential number or logarithms to the base of 10.

Significant numbers of bacteria or viruses which live on our skin, are found in food and surfaces that we come in contact with our hands.

FACT: It is common to find as many as 10 million transient bacteria cells on the end of just one finger.

There are three general types of skin care products that can be used to kill or remove bacteria from the skin:

1. Wash-off ‘simple’ soaps – to be rinsed off with water.
2. Wash-off antibacterial soaps – to be rinsed off with water.
3. Leave-on hand sanitisers, or hand disinfectants – no rinsing-off with water required. Hand washing with ‘simple’ soaps can normally be expected to remove around 90% of the number of transient bacteria. The normal mode of action for common hand washing ‘soaps’ is to physically remove bacteria from the hands, along with any visible contamination. This is achieved mechanically by the ‘detergency’ action of the soap.

General purpose antibacterial soaps work by chemical and/or physical action as well as mechanical action. The ‘soap’ will aid the physical removal by mechanical effect and the antibacterial active will provide the microbiological action by chemical (i.e. denaturation of proteins, DNA...) and/or physical (i.e. solubilisation of the membranes phospholipids) action. General purpose antibacterial soaps can normally be expected to remove/kill around 99% or 99.9% of bacteria.

Hand Sanitisers like Cutan Foam Hand Sanitiser is formulated to be used without water and work by physical and chemical action. They work by directly dissolving the bacterial membrane and by denaturising the constitutive proteins and enzymes, killing the bacteria cells extremely quickly, without any risk of inducing antibacterial resistance. The most effective hand sanitisers are alcohol based, with a level of around 70-80% of alcohol. Hand sanitisers usually kill up to 99.99% of bacteria, but Cutan Foam Hand Sanitisers kills 99.999%.

Source: Why 99.999% is important Dr Pierre Grascha PhD, Chief Scientist, Deb Group Ltd Issued September 2009 by Deb Group Ltd, Denby Hall Way, Denby, Derbyshire, DE5 8JZ, United Kingdom. www.debgroup.com

 DOWNLOAD PDF