Louise McSharry: Have you found your signature hand sanitiser?

The ubiquitous sanitiser is going to be around for a long time to come, but they're not all created equal, says our beauty writer

A selection of top sanitisers on the market

Louise McSharry

When I was dreaming about being a beauty writer for all those years, I won’t lie, I wasn’t thinking of the column I’d write on hand sanitiser. Up until last year, hand sanitiser was something I bought once a year for festival season, or occasionally used before touching a newborn baby. I would have been happy for things to remain that way, but alas, we’re living in a global pandemic, and hand sanitiser is going to be a part of our lives for quite some time.

It’s everywhere we turn. At the door of every shop, at the entrance to the doctor, at the café, the chemist and any other place you may be permitted to visit in the near future. One thing we’ve learned, however, is that not all hand sanitiser is created equal. Some are nicely scented and dry down quickly without pulverising the skin on your hands, and some smell so strongly of bad tequila that you find yourself having an intense flashback to a night you overdid it in The Palace in 2001. Not ideal when dropping your children off the crèche in the morning.