The Best — and To Be Honest, the Sexiest — Hand Sanitizers We’ve Tried

A skit in last weekend’s Adele-hosted Saturday Night Live cleverly captured this idea: so much of 2020, if shown out of context, is bizarre, unsettling, and occasionally extremely weird. For example, if you told me this time last year I would be culling a list of my favorite hand sanitizers today, I’d worry you might have ingested your key chain Purell.

But here we are! With a list of — honestly — pretty sexy hand sanitizers (another phrase I’d deem unthinkable in 2019). The following disinfectants do their good work without any sticky mess, and often leave a scent so alluring, I’d apply them like perfume. Wild.

Restore Hand Gel by Cowshed

This luxe hand sanitizer is stocked in every Soho House and at the front desk of the iconic Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles, where I bee lined every time I walked through the lobby during a summer staycation, has the amazing melt-in-your hand effect that’s weirdly addictive.

Meli Hands

Two Dallas mothers created the aromatic Meli Hands, which pairs aloe vera, Vitamin E, and essential oils with alcohol for a surprisingly luxurious product. Like most great sanitizers, Meli Hands comes in a pretty glass bottle, so I felt safe leaving the signature citrus spritzer it in my car. I wish I hadn’t now — people have been using it so obsessively I’m about to run out.

DS&D Urga – Big Sur After Rain

The Conservatory’s Shasa Mitchum alerted me to DS&D Urga’s bizarrely good smelling hand sanitizer. After testing it in the Highland Park Village shop, I couldn’t stop smelling my hands, which transported my Dallas-bound self to a misty California path flanked by Redwood trees.

Grown Alchemist Hydra-Hand Sanitizer

Their minimalistic, unisex packaging is soothing all on its own, but Grown Alchemist’s new hand sanitizer, with its hydrating powers and a medicinal, spa-evoking scent, could put most minds at ease.

Supernatural Extrasensory Hand Sanitizer

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this sustainable, natural product from Dallas entrepreneur Suzy Batiz (creator of Poo-Pourri) is the unicorn of hand sanitizer.