Help fund hand sanitiser lab testing
Chip in to support further testing to keep our community safe.
UPDATE: Incredible! Thanks to your donations, we can now independently test 16 hand sanitisers. Can you help us hit our goal of testing 30 popular hand sanitisers consumers are relying on?
We should be able to trust the claims companies make, especially in a pandemic. We've just tested 29 major hand sanitiser brands, but we need to rapidly expand our testing in order to keep companies honest.
It costs $730 to test and verify each sanitiser. With so many people relying on these products for protection, we want to make these results free for everyone.
Will you help fund our hand sanitiser investigation?
- $7,300 – will fund independent lab testing of 10 more hand sanitisers ✅
- $14,600 – will fund independent lab testing of 20 more hand sanitisers
- $21,900 – will fund independent lab testing of 30 more hand sanitisers
This investigation comes after we exposed a hand sanitiser sold by Mosaic brands in July which contained only 23% alcohol – well below the amount required to be effective against COVID-19.
Your donation supports a nonprofit organisation that champions your consumer rights, but it's not tax-deductible.
FAQ
CHOICE has sourced 29 sanitisers and partnered with the National Measurement Institute (NMI) to conduct testing on alcohol content claims.
The testers use gas chromatography with flame ionisation detection (GC-FID) to measure the percentage of ethanol and isopropanol in each sample. GC-FID is internationally recognised as the gold standard method for detecting the presence and amounts of these alcohols.
Once the results return from NMI, CHOICE verifiers check the results and claims, and then our team of journalists publish the content online, making it free for all consumers.
As a nonprofit consumer advocate, we rely on CHOICE members to fund our independent testing and investigations. Because sanitiser safety is an important community issue, we've commissioned a new test that will be freely available to everyone. Donations will help us take this independent investigation further and put the claims of popular hand sanitisers to the test. Unfortunately donations are not tax-deductible as CHOICE is not registered as an Australian charity.
We're grateful for your ongoing support as a member of the CHOICE community. Members like you have helped CHOICE remain independent for over 60 years. Your membership has already allowed us to report on 29 hand sanitisers and make this information available for everyone. But there are many more we'd like to test. If you can, chipping in will help us take our investigation from 29 hand sanitiser brands to up to 60.
The test results will be available later this year and will be freely available for everyone on choice.com.au.
The current regulation of hand sanitisers isn't working. At the moment, hand sanitisers that are classified as ‘cosmetics’, or claim to follow a specific World Health Organization formulation, are exempt from stringent regulation by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). CHOICE thinks all hand sanitisers should be subject to the same regulation by the TGA, with appropriate penalties for products that don't meet the right standard. This investigation will help us campaign for strong consumer protections.
