Hand Sanitizer and the FDA Guidelines — An Always Up-to-Date Resource

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early spring, we’ve seen a ton of news and updates about hand sanitizers - from who is making them, to what makes them safe or unsafe, to FDA recalls. 

Transparency is one of our number one priorities as we truly believe you should know exactly what you’re putting on your skin, so we’ve created this always-up-to-date blog post all about the latest hand sanitizer news coming from the FDA. We know it can be confusing, so we’ll break it down and keep you informed. 

Latest Update: 

8/27/2020: 

FDA Warns Consumers About Hand Sanitizer Packaged in Food & Drink Containers

What it means: The FDA has learned that some hand sanitizers are being sold in what looks like food or drink containers, like beer cans, kids’ snack pouches, water bottles etc. This may put some consumers at risk because if they were to drink hand sanitizer it could be very harmful. Some hand sanitizers are also being sold with food flavors like chocolate or raspberry, which can confuse people and mislead them to think they can consume the hand sanitizer. 

Where OLIKA Stands: OLIKA Refills are in foil pouches. We chose this refill design because it uses significantly less plastic than our Spray and Clip-On packaging.  We also found that this size of pouch made it easy to pour into the refillable Spray and Clip-On.  The refill pouch has proved popular in other hand soap and detergent categories. Please be sure to keep this out of reach of children and always store it in a safe place. 

Read the full update here: 

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/covid-19-update-fda-warns-consumers-about-hand-sanitizer-packaged-food-and-drink-containers

Update: 

8/24/2020: FDA provides testing method to assess the quality of hand sanitizer products for impurities

What it means: The FDA is now testing hand sanitizers to make sure they have the correct ingredients and do not have harmful levels of impurities such as methanol contamination.

Where OLIKA Stands: At OLIKA we test every batch of our hand sanitizer to ensure the safety of our ingredients and to be sure our formulations do not contain any harmful levels of impurities.

Read the full update here: 

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-updates-hand-sanitizers-consumers-should-not-use

Update: 

7/2/2020: FDA Takes Action to Warn, Protect Consumers from Dangerous Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizers Containing Methanol

What it means: The FDA is warning consumers about hand sanitizers made with methanol - a substance often used to create fuel and antifreeze that can be toxic when absorbed through the skin as well as life-threatening when ingested. Methanol may be present in some consumer products, including hand sanitizer, cholesterol drugs, vitamins, antibiotics, and hormones. Methanol is an organic impurity sometimes present in ethyl alcohol, and therefore, small amounts can be present in ethyl alcohol-based hand sanitizers or rubs. Product specifications limit the amount of methanol in ethyl alcohol to 0.5% or 0.2mL/L (USPNF,2015). The FDA has banned several hand sanitizers - see the complete list here. 

Where OLIKA Stands: OLIKA Hydrating Hand Sanitizer uses 65% ethyl alcohol - the CDC recommended amount of alcohol to be effective against 99.9% of germs. Methanol is one of the impurities from ethanol production and is kept at a very low level to be safe. We have tested for methanol and have only a trace amount of methanol at 0.001% - much less than even the safe trace amount - so you can always trust our products and their ingredients. To learn more about why the alcohol in hand sanitizers matters, see our blog post. 

Read the full update here: 

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-takes-action-warn-protect-consumers-dangerous-alcohol-based-hand

If you’re curious to learn more about OLIKA’s FDA information, you can search our National Drug Code (NDC) product numbers here.