Steps to Follow to Wash Your Hands Perfectly

Did you know that the Global Hand Washing Day is celebrated by UNICEF in India on October 15 of each year? It is important to raise awareness regarding the importance of personal hygiene in India because diarrhea is the number one cause of death for children below the age of 5 in our country and hand washing can lower the risk of this disease drastically. 

But is simply holding your hand under a tap with a little bit of soap enough? Is there any guarantee that all the germs will be eliminated? Is there a recommended way to clean one’s hands? The World Health Organization says that the hand washing process should last for the duration of the birthday song sung twice!

Step by Step Instructions for Washing Hands

1. Prepare a hand towel: This step can be used if you are using a public restroom. Make sure to get the hand towel ready from the dispenser, but do not yet remove it.
2. Wet: Place your hand underneath a faucet and get your hands wet. You can use warm or cold water but hot water must be avoided. After wetting both sides of the hands, apply a generous amount of soap or liquid available. Dettol liquid hand wash is gentle on the skin, less prone to contamination than bar soaps used by multiple people and known to remove germs effectively.
3. Lather: Now rub your palms together to build up a lather and spread the foam all over the palm, including the back, front and in between fingers and nails.
4. Scrub: This is an important step to get rid of all the dirt, grime and bacteria from your palms. The process you should follow includes these steps:

• Interlace the fingers of both hands, practicing a to and fro motion, while switching from one hand on top to the other.
• Interlacing one palm with the other through your fingers.
• Use back of one palm opposite another with fingers interlocked.
• Rotate and rub your left thumb on your right palm and vice versa
• And lastly, rotate your clasped fingers on the opposite palm and switch hands.

5. Rinse: Now clean off all the lather worked up by the hand wash under running water, until no foam remains.
6. Dry: Shake your hands vigorously for a moment to get rid of any excess water. Then use a paper towel to completely dry your hands. Then use the paper towel to close the faucet, if not automatic. If a paper towel is unavailable, use the hand dryer.

And voila, you have clean hands! If your hands are not visibly dirty, you can use a sanitizer instead of soap. In case, running water and soap is unavailable, then too a hand sanitizer, such as Dettol Instant Hand Sanitiser, proven to kill 99.9% germs without the use of water, can come to the rescue.