Hand Washing and Product Review

It's almost time to send our beautiful children back to school. Along with learning new things and meeting new friends they will also be bringing home the germs. I despise this part of my kids attending school. Since my oldest started school I have become a germaphobe. I am not a germaphobe about everything. Hands really bother me, they gross me out now. When I go somewhere with my kids I spray down the cart I use with Clean Well. I avoid touching anything I don't have to. When the kids get into the car I saturate all of their hands with Clean Well and then saturate mine. I usually rub down the steering wheel. If someone comes over to my house, when they leave I wipe down any handles or door knobs they touched.

When we get home from outings everyone must take off their shoes and immediately go into the bathroom and wash their hands. This goes for my hubby and myself as well not just for my children. So as you can see I have become quite obsessive about hand cleanliness. The reason behind this is when Celtic started going to school he would come home sick. And it would spread around to the rest of the family. I wish I had some kind of cleansing chamber outside of my front door. That probably wouldn't be eco friendly.

I love hand washing, I know that sounds weird but ever since I implemented the hand washing obsession there have been less illnesses in my home. I usually make my own liquid soap but I loved receiving the hand soap from Ecover. It smells fantastic! It lathers soooo well and there is no mistaking when my kids actually spend time washing their hands because I can smell it.

The proper way for you to wash your hands is to:

* Turn on the water and wet your hands.
* Turn off the water to save water.
* Apply soap.
* Rub the palms together and then the backs of your hands and then in between the fingers.
* Scratch your fingernails across the soap in the palm of your hands.
* You should spend a good minute and a half cleansing your hands with soap.
* You can easily get your children to wash their hands longer by having them sing the ABC's or the Happy Birthday song at a reasonable pace.
* Turn the water back on and rinse your hands well.
* Pat yours hands dry on a hand towel this helps reduce moister loss. Rubbing your hands vigorously on a towel can cause dryness.


You dont need to use antibacterial soap. I know this sounds weird coming from a germaphobe but we dont have antibacterial soap in our home. I have learned that it really doesnt make a difference whether it is antibacterial or not you just need to use soap to clean your hands. Not to mention antibacterial soaps breeds super germs and those are something I can clearly live without.

The Ecover hand soap smells like lavender and contains aloe vera. It has not dried out any of our hands and I actually feel like mine are more moisturized since using it. The Ecover hand soap is plant based and the packaging is 100% recyclable.

I also received a stain remover which I will review later this week as I have not gotten the time to use it yet. I will be trying it out tonight with my laundry! I really enjoyed working with the Ecover representative because I knew she had actually taken the time out of her day to look at my site and read a post. I had initially contacted her about the hand soap and she wrote back that she would be including the stain remover as well for the "baby puke". I appreciate the time she took to connect with me.

Check out my blog entry to enter the GIVEAWAY!
http://greenearthjourney.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-go-eco-ecover-review-and-giveaway.html