If You Try to Buy Hand-Sanitizer in Germany

Over the past three weeks, if you went to any German grocery or drug-store, it's just about impossible to find any hand-sanitizer.  If they do put a box up on the shelf, it's usually sold out in a matter of an hour or so. 

My wife did find a bottle one afternoon....over-priced (in my opinion) at 15-Euro.  The funny thing is that I could have bought the same sized container at the US commissary for $6 back in December (I bought my usual winter assortment of two bottles at that point....never thinking about the virus potential).

Trying to buy it via Amazon?  A simple 7-to-9 Euro bottle (the pricing back in January), now runs for 13-to-17 Euro, with the promise that it'll be delivered in roughly four weeks.  If you read through the Amazon-wording, the stuff is coming from beyond Germany, and the EU.  In one case, it was manufactured in Turkey (heavily over-priced), another case that I noticed.....it was a Chinese product listed for around 40 Euro for a 500 ML container with a delivery-date of late-April. 

So here's the thing, for my German associates in this period of woe.  You can basically make the stuff yourself.  Buy a 1,000 ML container of Glycerin and a 1-liter container of Isopropylalkohol (total price for around 22 Euro).  Both are made within Germany and easily purchased via Amazon or any of local chemical shops.  Mine was delivered in two work-days. 

So the mix for this is 2-parts Isopropylalkohol and 1-part Glycerin.  For 'flavor' or smell....you can throw in a dash of vanilla or cinnamon.  I think most don't care.

Acquire a plain non-description plastic bottle, and put your home-made solution in this.  Shake the stuff up, and there you go.  It's the same stuff as you'd pay 20 Euro for a bottle at today's rates, for about one-third the cost. 

Effectiveness?  Well, if you read through the science stuff....most all hand-santizers offered for sale are 99.999-percent effective against the virus 'bugs'.  So even the stuff you make.....is not 100-percent, but it's almost at the same level as the 99.999-percent stuff that you'd buy normally. 

Note: Isopropylakohol is not for 'play' and don't smoke or light up matches near the stuff.