The clean team: Sanisfaction, Hand Relief and Far Cough.

It's been a concerning and somewhat crazy few months for everyone, as we now slowly get used to a new "normal" in our changed lives. At the start of the Coronavirus situation, we set aside all our current R&D projects, to focus our chemists on making some quite diverse products to help our friends and fellow car fanatics with quality hygiene products needed to help combat what had been thrust upon them. From that, three new products have eventuated to help people live a little bit cleaner and safer; an interior safe disinfectant, two different types of hand sanitisers and an anti-bacterial hand soap that's to use with the sanitisers.

Getting some real Sanisfaction

We adapted our new manufacturing shed to make two different formula alcohol-based hand sanitisers from ingredients we had, borrowed or traded with other local labs and manufacturers, whom we are very thankful to! 

This first lot we made became a victim of its own success, as more people asked for it than we could supply and we quickly consumed all those ingredients in the first few weeks! The fact we gave all of the few hundred litres of it away might have been a part of that as well.

There has been a SEVERE shortage of ingredients to make sanitisers (and many other things) in Australia, so rather than wait months for more ingredients to arrive from overseas (it's been very alarming to see Australia's lack of manufacturing with many core ingredients needed for this pandemic), we set about working out how we could make some of the harder to acquire ingredients ourselves and secure a stable supply. We invested in a couple of very cool looking commercial stills, so we now have a fully-fledged and registered alcohol/ moonshine company in our shed! So we can now make our own food grade ethanol alcohol, that's of 96+% purity after we double distille it. 

We need this stronger type of alcohol to make a World Health Organisation (WHO) hand rub sanitiser formula, that's suitable for medical and health services with a very strict 80% v/v ethanol alcohol blend that gives you a water-like consistency, so it can be used as a quick drying hand rub or with a trigger bottle sprayer. It's a more no frills, just straight into the business of killing the micro-nasties without any fragrance or fancy stuff used in it, leaving a very sterile and clean feeling to your hands. As we are using such a high-grade type of distilled alcohol, it doesn't smell as bad as a few of the others do! This same formula usually sells for over $100.00 for a 5 litre drum, but we have been giving it all away to many local smaller medical facilities, aged care homes, shelters, community and volunteer groups etc, that stipulate they need a more medical type of hand sanitiser. If you are with, or personally know a Sunshine Coast (that's Qld if you were not sure) based group that needs this, please feel free to make contact with us!

It upset me to see the large amounts of imported hand sanitiser at crazy prices at my corner supermarket and service station in the last few weeks, as it came from the country that has been holding back on the ingredients we need here! They also did not not list what the percentage of alcohol was used in it either, so people have no idea how effective they will be. So looking at his, we have made a 2nd variety of hand sanitiser, which is our Aussie made Sanisfaction. It shares the same high blend of our "moonshine" 80% v/v of food grade ethanol alcohol like the WHO formula (label says 70%, but we have now upped the formula since printing them). However, this one uses a local Tassie mint fragrance and some other locally sourced emollients/humectents, so it's got a gel consistancy, smells alright, leaves your hands feeling clean, smooth, fresh and won't ever dry them out with its repeated use. The alcohol in both blends have been denatured, so if you were to drink it, it's not going to be as pleasureable or nice as it is for your hands!

Use either of these hand sanitiser formulas after washing your hands. If they are dirty, it's important that you wash them first with an anti-bacterial hand soap (like our one below). Keep a bottle handy for those times you cannot wash your hands, like when you're out and about (after touching any petrol bowser, or a visit to the shops, or before you eat etc) put a small dollop in your hands and briskly rub it thoroughly in till it dries, killing off 99.9% of the germs, bacteria and other micro-nasties you might have unwillingly picked up in your travels.

Currently, we can only make about 40 litres of the high grade ethanol per day, so we are limited to how much sanitiser we can create. However, from this we can also blend the Sanisfaction formula, that's now available in a 250ml bottle for fellow car fanatics. From us selling this, it will help contribute towards the larger costs of making our free WHO formula sanitiser, that we will be continuing to give away. As we can only hand batch this product up in small quantities, it will only ever be available from our website. It's priced at $14.99. Please be aware that it won't always be available, as we do expect these smaller batches to sell out reasonably often, as we ebb and flow with the making and creating of it. 

You could use some Hand Relief

You know where your hands have been! So we have our new antibacterial hand soap, something you use in conjunction with the hand sanitiser as a system of hand care. Repetitive use of soaps can be very hard on your skin, so we made this one to be softer on your hands, but still very tough on germs. This uses the same Quat family as Far Cough in its formula as well.

To get the most from it, apply a good sized dollop to your already wet hands, rubbing thoroughly all round your hands for 20 seconds before rinsing off with water. This longer wash time will pull apart the outer membrane of the enveloped COVID-19 virus, effectively deactivating it and the remaining bits of harmless virus are then rinsed or wiped away. Then you can use the Sanisfaction right afterwards to double up and do a final sweep of any remaining or more resilient germs or bacteria, for a great hygienic system.

Like the Sanisfaction, its only going to be available on our website, priced at $7.99 and the profits from the sale of it go towards our WHO formula hand sanitiser that we will continue to give away.

Time to Far Cough the micro-nasties

This was the very first project we completed; an effective interior disinfectant spray, which due to the urgency for it, became the single fastest project our entire team have ever brought out to our fellow car fanatics. In the backstory, we were amazingly fortunate to secure some of the exceptional quaternary ammonium compound (Quat), namely benzalkonium chloride for this. This ingredient is one that's recommended by Australia's regulatory body; Therapeutic Goods Association of Australia (TGA), for use in disinfectants which you can read about on their website here.

We knew that between the alcohol, bleach and Quat ingredients the TGA and other world bodies recommended, that the Quat would be the only one that could be blended into something safe for car interiors, as well as having no issues with it being dangerous for us to use over the long term. It's now available for a very reasonable $9.99 in Autobarn, Repco and Supercheap Auto stores too! Its part code is BOFARC. Read about using it in greater detail from this recent article by clicking here.

Thank you for reading about these three products. If you have any questions about any of them, you can find the links to read more below, or feel free to hit up our team directly by calling 1800 351 308 or email info@bowdensown.com.au . Likewise, if you are a community group based on the Sunshine Coast that needs some help, please contact us!

I genuinely hope these can help you, your family and friends stay that little bit more safe, healthy and feeling positive through all the turmoil that has affected so many in our great nation and worldwide of late. I still strongly believe that we are going to get through this, better and stronger than ever before.

Please continue to stay safe between now and then.

Dan Bowden