How to Use Rubbing Alcohol Safely

This is another post in the series on household chemicals.

Rubbing alcohol is frequently recommended by frugal and green bloggers for use as a household cleaner and needs to be used with care.

Rubbing alcohol is a general term that most often refers to isopropanol but can also refer to ethanol. It is important to understand that there is a difference between ethanol and isopropanol.

Ethanol is the same type of alcohol you’ll find in your liquor cabinet, while isopropanol is the alcohol we’re familiar with in medical applications – the pads used to wipe your skin before receiving a shot as an example. Both can be used as a topical disinfectant—think back to all the movies where nothing but a bottle of liquor was available—and this is how the term came about (the topical application, not the movie scenes).

To keep things simple, from this point forward, the rubbing alcohol referenced is the white bottle of 60% – 90% isopropanol most of us are familiar with from the pharmacy department.

Rubbing alcohol should always be used in a well-ventilated area.

Isopropanol is volatile, which means that it evaporates quickly, creating flammable fumes. Never use rubbing alcohol near open flames or while smoking.

Isopropanol is converted to acetone in the human body. Do not drink it, do not use it in an unventilated area, and do not use it over large areas of skin.

To understand why rubbing alcohol is so often recommended as a household cleaning solvent, let’s dive back into high school chemistry for a moment.

Dear Fellow Chem Nerds,
I know I’m playing fast and loose with some terms. I’m just going for the gist, not prepping people for their Organic Chem final.
Just breathe. (Just not the fumes.)
Love,
Heather

There is an adage like dissolves like. This refers to two types of compounds polar and non-polar. Water is a polar compound. Each V-shaped H20 molecule has an area with a slightly positive charge and an area with a slightly negative charge. Compounds such as fats are non-polar and do not have these charged areas. In most cases, at least without playing chemist, you won’t get a non-polar solution to mix with a polar solution. If you want to visualize this, head into the kitchen, put some water in a jar and add a few tablespoons of olive oil. Close the lid and shake the heck out of it. You’ll see tiny droplets of oil suspended in the water (until they eventually float to the top) but these droplets are not part of the solution.

Alcohols, like rubbing alcohol, are also polar molecules, but they are organic compounds, which means they have at least one carbon atom. The longer the carbon chain, the less likely the molecules are soluble in water.  The carbon chain helps the compound bring non-polar compounds into solution. So alcohols like isopropanol (which pretty much makes up rubbing alcohol) can act as a solvent for non-polar compounds like dyes and fats.

This is why you see both rubbing alcohol and hairspray recommended to remove ink from fabric. The alcohol brings the ink into solution where it can be wicked away with a paper towel or cloth.

Rubbing alcohol can strip the fats and oils that protect your skin.

If this is allowed to happen for a long time, this can lead to cracking, which can set you up for dermatitis and other even less fun infections.  Use gloves or limit contact with your skin.

When used properly, rubbing alcohol is a fairly safe cleaning agent. The main problem is its effectiveness as a solvent. Sometimes, it will destroy the item you’re trying to clean. You must use care and understand that alcohols are not always a safe choice for some surfaces and finishes.

Keep rubbing alcohol away from many painted surfaces, shellac, lacquer, and some man-made fabrics.

In some cases, denatured alcohol -ethanol alcohol with bittering agents to make it unpalatable- may be a better choice. Don’t worry. I’ll get to denatured alcohol in a future article.

Send your questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.