Who needs Clorox everywhere?
Written: Jul 05 '06 (Updated Jul 05 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Pre-mixed, convenient sprayer, easy to use. Alternative to triclosan for the germ-obsessed set.
Cons: Dubious instructions, can make this yourself, window cleaner does the same thing.
The Bottom Line: Clorox Anywhere is a convenient sanitizer, but so are many household cleaners. If you really want to supplement them with a bleach-based spray, you can make this yourself.
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| bkalafut's Full Review: Clorox Anywhere Hard Surface Daily Sanitizing Spra... |
Despite the building evidence that underexposure to disease-causing agents ("germs") early in life causes allergies and immune-system problems later, ours remains a sterilization-obsessed society, going beyond basic hygeine to wash with antibacterial soap, embed biocides in cutting boards, and put triclosan in seemingly everything except fine wine and ice cream, and buying products such as Clorox Anywhere Hard Surface Daily Sanitizing Spray to wipe out bacterial trespassers.
Clorox Anywhere is a sodium hypochlorite (chlorine bleach) bleach based "sanitizer" intended for quick decontamination of "counters, sinks,(...) plastic cutting boards, high chars, pet bowls...": nonporous surfaces which come into contact with food or can be grunged up by macroscopic life forms such as ourselves. Diluted to .0095% concentration, 631 times more dilute than ordinary 6% bleach, a gallon of household bleach could make over 3500 twenty-two ounce spray bottles of Clorox Anywhere. Since it retails for $2.99 and plastic spray bottles can be had for a few dimes, even after advertising, Clorox should be making a pretty penny selling such a low-cost product.
The package directions call for wetting the surface to be sanitized, letting Clorox Anywhere sit for two minutes (to allow time for such a weak solution to sufficiently oxidize bacteria), and wiping it dry, with no rinsing necessary. That's easy enough, but although Clorox Anywhere is weaker than pool water, I wouldn't give a toy back to a baby, feed a pet out of a bowl, or cut vegetables on a surface until I've rinsed hypochlorite residue off even at this low concentration. I also wouldn't use this or any other oxidizer on metal surfaces such as brass or stainless steel.
The experiment
Clorox Anywhere makes a weaker claim than even Pine-Sol, calling itself a "sanitizer" instead of a disinfectant. Especially since washing cutting boards and plates with soap and water is considered sufficiently hygenic by food safety experts, I found myself wondering how this dilute bleach spray compared to other household cleaner.
Normally, bactericidal activity is quantified by the "Phenol coefficient"--the ratio of the proportion of a reference strain of Staphylococcus aureus or other bacterium of interest killed under standard conditions after a predetermined time as compared to the effect of phenol on the same bacterium.
Clorox, however, doesn't provide such information, so I was left to conduct my own, crude experiment. (Measuring the phenol coefficient would require access to a microbiology lab and disease-causing bacteria.) Due mainly to lack of supplies, I didn't do sufficient controls, not comparing to plain water spray or saline spray, so the experiment would get a "C" if it were done by one of my students, but it nonetheless sheds a little light on the subject.
Four nutrient agar plates--discs of jellied chicken broth, more or less--were poured in petri dishes and allowed to harden. I swabbed my toilet seat and touched the swab to one plate, then taped off three areas and cleaned them with Clorox Anywhere, OxiClean, and a generic ammonia and ethanol Windex-style window cleaner, respectively. Each region was subsequently swabbed, and the swabs were touched to fresh agar plates.
The agar plates were then covered and incubated (allowed to sit around) at room temperature in an out-of-the-way spot in my kitchen for 24 hours.
The result
The control showed signs of bacterial growth--as expected--whereas all three others were free of it.
Thus, at least to crude approximation--which is fine for a mere sanitizer--OxiClean and window cleaner are as effective at killing bacteria as Clorox Anywhere. A spray bottle full of the former can be made up for pennies on the dollar, and a gallon of the latter can be had for a buck or two.
A dirty secret
Semantic subtleties can sometimes even be important on product labels. Clorox Anywhere is labeled as a "sanitizing" spray, not as a disinfectant, a biocide, or a sterilizer.
Aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite is a strong oxidizer, eating through stains, bacteria, viruses, and delicate clothes by brute force, which is why hospitals and laboratories often use it for sterilization. At concentrations low enough for significant bleaching to not occur, it's safe to assume that the thorough sterilization associated with hypochlorite solution will also not occur.
I don't know the conditions of Clorox's own experiment (wherein 99.9% of bacteria on a hard surface are killed) but I do know that sodium hypochlorite is not considered to be a good disinfectant per se. The hypochlorite ion does not diffuse well across a bacterium's membrane potential. If bacteria are present as spores or are growing in a biofilm or colony on a surface, Clorox Anywhere isn't likely to be adequate since, unlike disinfectants, it kills bacteria by oxidization instead of by disrupting their metabolism, and will first have to eat through secretions or a thick cell wall.
Clorox Anywhere is good for quick fixes, but when something can't be treated with strong hypochlorite solutions and needs serious disinfection, products like Lysol (Dettol) or benzalkonium chloride, both of which also have some antiviral action, are much better suited to the task. When health is at stake, use what hospitals use.
Another dirty secret
Although there is more to it than a simple dilution of sodium hypochlorite bleach, you can make this product yourself. The MSDS lists a second ingredient of concern--sodium hydroxide--which can serve chemically to increase the solution's shelf-life. Dilute household bleach to .0095% strength and titrate with sodium hydroxide to a pH of 8.5.
Fleishman-Hillard sent me a complementary bottle of Clorox Anywhere for promotional purposes so that I may give it a fair and honest review. As previous reviews of complementary products go to show, I hold to my end of the bargain.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
bkalafut
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Member: Bennett Kalafut
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
Reviews written: 161
Trusted by: 24 members
About Me:
Stretching single molecules for fun and profit.
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