How to Wash Your Hands

Handwashing is essential to protect yourself and others from bacteria, pathogens, chemicals and other contaminants that can stay on your hands for a day. There are some situations where hand washing is necessary, but you can also use hand sanitizer if your hands are not very dirty. Anyway, you need to know how to wash your hands properly to have clean hands.

Table of Contents

Wash your hands with soap and water

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Wash hands when hands are dirty. You can wash your hands any time you think your hands are dirty, but there are certain situations where you must wash your hands. Those situations include: ^{[1] X Trusted Source Centers for Disease Contrp and Prevention Go to source}

Before and after wound care.
Before and after preparing food or eating.
Before and after taking care of the patient.
After using the toilet.
After coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose.
After taking out the trash or collecting the garbage.
After changing diapers.
After petting or caring for animals and handling animal waste or products.
Before placing or removing contact lenses. ^{[2] X Trusted Source Mayo Clinic Go to Source}

World Health Organization

Global Public Health Agency

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international health. Founded in 1948, the World Health Organization monitors public health risks, promotes people’s health and well-being, coordinates international health cooperation, and emergency response operations. grant. WHO is currently leading and coordinating global efforts to help countries prevent, detect and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

World Health Organization
Global Public Health Agency

Experts say that: Two hands touch a lot, so it is easy to catch the virus. Once contaminated, hands transmit the virus through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Washing your hands with soap or alcohol-based hand sanitizer will help kill the virus on your hands.

Remember to wash your hands for at least 20-30 seconds. ^{[3] X Trusted Source World Health Organization Go to source} If you want, you can wash your hands longer. 20-30 seconds is a good rule of thumb to make sure you wash your hands long enough to get rid of bacteria.

Wet your hands with warm or cold water. Turn on the faucet and place your hand under the stream of water to wet it. ^{[4] X Trusted Source Centers for Disease Contrp and Prevention Go to source} Make sure to thoroughly wet palms and backs of hands so soap is dispensed.

Wet your hands under running water to make sure they are clean. Pools or tubs of water can harbor bacteria or pathogens.

Use the right amount of soap for your hands. Spray the palm of your hand with a dime-sized amount of soap. Then rub your hands together to lather up the soap.

You can use liquid soap, bar soap, or powder soap. Not necessarily antibacterial soap. ^{[5] X Trusted Source Mayo Clinic Go to Source}

Interlace your fingers to scrub the crevices. Place one hand on top of the other with both palms facing the ground. Place the fingers of the upper hand between the fingers of the lower hand. Move your hand up and down the length of your finger to scrub. Continue to insert the fingers of one hand into the other and repeat this action. ^{[6] X Trusted Source World Health Organization Go to Source}

Wash your hands with this action for 3 to 5 seconds with each hand.

Grasp the thumb and rotate the hand around the thumb. Point out the thumb of your left hand and use your right hand to grasp it. Twist the right hand up and down to scrub the left finger and let the soap drip down where the thumb meets the hand. After about 2 to 3 seconds, switch hands to scrub the other finger. ^{[7] X Trusted Source World Health Organization Go to Source}

Grip the thumb just enough so that the soap can clean the skin more deeply.

Use your fingertips to rub your palms. Open left palm and face up. Pinch the fingertips of the right hand and use them to rub the left palm. Continue rubbing soap in the palm of your hand for 3 to 4 seconds before using the same method to clean the palm of your right hand. ^{[8] X Trusted Source World Health Organization Go to Source}

This will help the soap get under the nails and clean them.

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Tip: In total, you should wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. If you find it difficult to measure time, sing “Happy Birthday” twice while scrubbing your hands. ^{[9] X Trusted Source Centers for Disease Contrp and Prevention Go to source}

Rinse hands clean. Once you’ve finished scrubbing, put your hand under running water again. Let the water wash away the soap until you can no longer see soap bubbles. ^{[10] X Trusted Source Mayo Clinic Go to Source}

Dry your hands with a clean towel. Take a clean, dry towel and use it to wipe your hands. If possible, you can use disposable tissues to keep germs from spreading. ^{[11] X Trusted Source World Health Organization Go to source} Make sure you absorb all the water until your hands are dry.

If you need to use a hand dryer, make sure you move your hands and rub them together under a stream of warm air to dry them completely.

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Use a towel to turn off the faucet. If the water does not lock itself, you can use a towel to turn it back on. That way, you won’t immediately recontaminate your hands. Throw away the towel if it’s disposable, or hang it up to dry.

You can also use your elbow to close the faucet if you don’t have a towel. ^{[12] X Trusted Source Mayo Clinic Go to Source}
If you’re using a reusable towel, wash it at least once a week so germs don’t build up.

Use hand sanitizer

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Determine if hand sanitizer is suitable. In some cases, you can use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer instead of soap and water. However, you should evaluate the situation a bit. Things to consider include: ^{[13] X Trusted Source Centers for Disease Contrp and Prevention Go to source}

Are your hands visibly dirty? If you can see dirt or grease on your hands, use soap and water to wash them off.
What do you have on hand ? An alcohol-based hand sanitizer won’t get rid of all germs on your hands, nor will it remove certain substances like pesticides and heavy metals.
Whether or not water is available . If you don’t have a faucet, you can use hand sanitizer because it’s better than getting your hands dirty. But if soap and running water are available, wash your hands with water.

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Spray hand sanitizer onto a dime-sized hand. Choose a solution that contains 60% alcohol to improve the effectiveness of killing harmful bacteria. Press the tip of the solution bottle down to spray the right amount of solution into your hand. ^{[14] X Trusted Source Centers for Disease Contrp and Prevention Go to source}

You can also use an alcohol-based wet wipe if you have one.

Rub your hands together until the hand sanitizer has evaporated. Rub your hands together for about 20 seconds, then spread the hand sanitizer all over your hands as if you were washing your hands with water. Interlock your fingers and rub the palm of your hand with your fingertips so that the solution goes deep under the nail. Scrub like this continuously until your hands feel dry. ^{[15] X Trusted Source Centers for Disease Contrp and Prevention Go to source}

Steps

Wash your hands with soap and water

Use hand sanitizer

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