When was the last time you washed your hands? Think about it. Was it after going to the restroom? Or maybe when you brushed your teeth? Or maybe you just used a bit of hand sanitizer.

When I was kid, we never used hand sanitizer. I remember playing outside all day, rinsing my hands under the water hose and eating lunch on the back porch. Sure we were taught to wash our hands before meals, but that was about it. We didn’t run around pumping hand sanitizer every time we came in contact with a foreign substance. And I turned out just fine. Trust me, I didn’t have any rare or horrible ailments as a kid from not sanitizing.

Is it just me or does it seem like everyone is obsessed with sanitizing these days. There are hand sanitizer pumps in schools, libraries, and in purses. Is over-sanitation having an impact on the environment? Admittedly, I went through a sanitizer phase. It was just after my first child was born. I insisted that everyone sanitize their hands prior to picking him up. And I sanitized everything.

But things were different with my second child. I still wanted people to have clean hands, but I didn’t obsess about it.

In fact, one of the reasons I stopped using hand sanitizer was because I started getting a couple of dry patches in between my fingers. I had never had those before, so I stopped using hand sanitizer and within a few weeks the dry patches went away. We have all heard that there are hidden dangers to using hand sanitizer. But – for me – the danger wasn’t that hidden.

I recently bought some hand soap that I got for free with my coupons and after a couple of weeks, the same thing happened. And it didn’t matter how much lotion I used, I still had dry patches between my fingers. So I stopped using the new soap since that was the only thing I had changed. Just like when I stopped using the hand sanitizer, the dry patches went away.

That got me thinking . . . what if the problem wasn’t the hand sanitizer but rather an ingredient in the sanitizer? And that’s when I started reading about triclosan.

Have you heard about this stuff? It’s pretty nasty and can have some pretty back effects on the endocrine system and the thyroid. It is even listed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) as one of the seven chemicals children should avoid due to its potential harm to their development. Yikes!

So I checked out a list of products containing triclosan and was shocked! It turns out that most soaps and cleansers that are anti-bacterial contain triclosan. But it’s not just in soap. It can be in toothpaste, deodorant, shave gel, and even clothes. Kind of freaked out that I have a bunch of these products, I started looking for products that are triclosan free.

Yay! Ivory soap made the list. I just got a ton of that free and would be really upset if it contained triclosan. And my husband will be happy to know that Listerine is triclosan free.

Please don’t think that I am a super greenie mom who lives chemical and additive free. ha! But I feel like I should make some wise choices for my family and me. And it looks like living triclosan free – as much as I can control – is a good idea.

So now in addition to reading food labels for MSG and a list of food colorings (Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Red 40 (both groups),Yellow 10, Carmoisine, Red 4 (FSA),Blue 1, Blue 2 Green 3, Orange B, Red 3 (CSPI)), I’ll be reading toiletry and cleaning product labels for triclosan.

And to my hand sanitizer loving friends, Purell hand sanitizer is one of the few products available that is triclosan free.

(Mommy Rant is a weekly series of all the things I want to say, but never find time to. Some topics may be a little controversial, and if you don’t agree with me – GREAT! Tell me what you think and let’s chat.)

Related articles

• Soap vs. Hand Sanitizer (fitsugar.com)
• Antibacterial Hand Sanitizer May Actually Make You Sicker (neatorama.com)
• FDA Warns That Hand Sanitizers Aren’t Foolproof (fitsugar.com)
• What’s the Deal With Triclosan? (fitsugar.com)