Soap substitutes for hand washing

[B2B1]

Hi, I’m new here but am part of the asthma group. I have the whole atopic gang - asthma, eczema and hay fever although the hay fever less so.

I was told by a doctor years ago ‘no soap on any part of your body’ so have been using soap substitutes for hand washing. I was prescribed Doublebase in a pump dispenser 500g which I kept at the sink and it didn’t really irritate my hands so I used it when hand washing. I haven’t had this prescribed for ages though for some reason and they keep giving me dermol shower emollient and also Doublebase shower emollient.

When coronavirus hit I bought some dermol hand wash and used that for the increased hand washing thinking that as it has an anti bacterial effect it would be better. I’ve also been using QV hand wash which I had in the house. Both irritate my skin slightly but I can put up with that as long as it stops me getting coronavirus!

I was back at work this week and thought I’d just google again to make sure these soap substitutes kill coronavirus and found articles saying they’re not recommended as they don’t!!

Very dismayed and have now started using a bar of Simple soap to wash my hands at work and home. Obviously this is going to make my skin worse.

Does anyone know if it is ok to keep using these soap substitutes to guard against coronavirus? I’m going to contact my doctor to check but wondered if anyone here knows.

Thanks

[lovesradio]

I have to use soap substitutes too and I assumed they wouldn't protect me, as it's the chemical structure of soap that makes it effective. So I just make sure I am still washing my hands as often as possible and take a wee bottle of Q.V. wash with me when going out.