Will a good soak in hydrogen peroxide, alcohol sanatize a used razor?
Is barbicide really nessasary?
- Thread starter bamamckay
- Start date
Alcohol should do the trick, provided you make sure there is no soap scum or goo on the razor. I usually clean my razors really good with scrubbing bubbles and then a give them a dip in alcohol.
I can understand using alcohol, but if Barbicide is readily available to you, why not go for it? I believe there are alcohol resistant strains of ickies out there that Barbicide will slap around for you. Could be wrong about that, but I'm assuming Barbicide exists and is such a staple at hospitals and barber shops because it's very effective.
Probably not "necessary" but if you can find it in your area (you can always find it online), it's really inexpensive. Plus, I think the soaking jar is way cool looking! 
A. There's no Barbicide at any hospital where I've worked.
B. I am an Infectious Diseases physician and I use alcohol to disinfect razors. Barbicide does kill some things not killed by alcohol, but most of those "ickies" wouldn't survive just sitting on a razor at an antique store.
20% Clorox kills everything, but I'm not sure what it would do to a razor finish, so I use alcohol.
Reminder: Alcohol kills by DRYING, so allow the razor to air dry after applying alcohol.
Probably not absolutely necessary, but not a bad thing. There are even cheaper versions of Barbicide out there, like Mar-V-Cide et al. It's worth doing it right IMO.
Unless you are talking about a straight razor, there shouldn't be any rustable metal in a safety razor. At least not the ones usually discussed here.
It depends on how badly the barber mangled your hair . . .
Thanks for getting the real scoop out on it. I thought I had read in a few places that it was used in hospitals regularly, but I'm likely wrong.
I guess I'm just thinking of the quote: "Barbicide is a United States Environmental Protection Agency-approved hospital disinfectant. It is a germicide, pseudomonacide, fungicide, and viricide. In addition, it kills the HIV-1 virus (AIDS virus), Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C." (that's from Wikipedia, but there's a similar claim on Barbicide bottles)
For us germaphobes, "most" is the operative word there. I'm sure alcohol is more than adequate. It's just that you can never truly know when a razor was last used and/or what might be lurking. So I try to cover the bases with Barbicide. I'll agree that's it's probably overkill, but it's cheap and it's a pretty blue color.
Don't forget that Scrubbing Bubbles is a disinfectant as well.
It's all good. The blue is just a coloring agent, but you probably knew that. In the hospital we are usually disinfecting skin, so we have to use something easy on the skin. When disinfecting instruments, the best thing to do is put them through an autoclave. You could certainly put a razor through an autoclave, if you could find one. It would come out sterile.
The sentence you quoted is kind of funny to me. It's a GERMICIDE, right? But what's a "germ"? I do this for a living and I don't know the answer. My guess would be bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Let's compare alcohol to Barbicide, using the sentence. Alcohol kills pseudomonas and most fungi. It kills SOME viruses, but not all. HIV can't survive longer than probably about an hour on an inanimate object. Whatever razor you're using has probably been dry for more than an hour, whether it came in the mail or you found it in an antique store. It's also funny that the sentence says it's a "viracide" and then says "in addition" it also kills Hep B and Hep C. But Hep B and Hep C are VIRUSES. So it follows from "viricide" that it kills those viruses.
My feeling is that a good soap and water wash will PHYSICALLY REMOVE viruses from the razor, making it less important to kill them.
Again, if you want to use Barbicide, by all means, use it. The wording is just funny to me.
Can't help but chuckle at your faith in hospitals as a germaphobe.
All due respect to kingfisher, if you want to stay away from germs a hospital is the last place you want to be.
I've mentioned this before, but I use Lysol! Take a look at the back of the can----there is a very comprehensive list of things it kills. I feel safer using it than Barbicide. After giving it a good spray-down, swish it around in a sink of anti-bacterial soapy (like Dial Anti-Bacterial Liquid) hot water and you probably don't need to fear any germs or viruses living on your razor anymore.
BTW, I also use the same Dial "Gold" Anti-Bacterial soap in my sink of "razor-rinsing" hot water for between passes. Since I've started doing this, I have had NO skin flare-ups/bumps. (I was getting bumps that appeared to be ingrowns, but were actually infected hair follicles. This swelling, in turn, caused an occasional ingrown hair) If I'd tried this before seeing a dermatologist, I could have saved some serious $$$-----none of his expensive pills, potions, or lotions did a thing. It works great for me. I recommend it for anyone with any similar problems. A bottle of soap is pretty cheap.
BTW, I also use the same Dial "Gold" Anti-Bacterial soap in my sink of "razor-rinsing" hot water for between passes. Since I've started doing this, I have had NO skin flare-ups/bumps. (I was getting bumps that appeared to be ingrowns, but were actually infected hair follicles. This swelling, in turn, caused an occasional ingrown hair) If I'd tried this before seeing a dermatologist, I could have saved some serious $$$-----none of his expensive pills, potions, or lotions did a thing. It works great for me. I recommend it for anyone with any similar problems. A bottle of soap is pretty cheap.
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I most definitely didn't intend that statement to be construed as me having faith that hospitals are a great refuge for germaphobes. But I do have faith in the science that hospitals and doctors employ.
I think it's excellent that your sharing your expertise with us. My sensibilities need reaffirmation about these things. I know on some level that it's effective to manually remove the pathogens, but my irrational fears of these things compels me to want them dead! LOL
Again, the quote that I posted was from Wikipedia. I don't have my Barbicide with me right now, so I can't say that it's taken verbatim from the bottle. I'm guessing, though, that they repeat the HIV and HEP claims because so many of us laypersons (laypeople?) don't always realize that a virucide would kill HIVs and HEPs. I know it should be intuitive. We just know that HEP and HIV are bad ickies and they gotta get killed.
The effectiveness of Barbicide and similar products is compromised if any soil remains on the object being treated. You have to scrub them clean first, then soak.
Been wanting to ask an ID doc (I'm a Rehab Doc). What's you're take on used brushes or even soaps and creams? While I figure the risk's very low, blood touches the brush when you get a nick. I realize there's no way you're gonna get the classic blood-borne bad viruses (HIV, HEP B, C), but any other significant concerns? Any good way to sterilize a brush?
I use the Barbicide based on the Chicken Soup Theory.
It can't hurt, and may certainly help.
It can't hurt, and may certainly help.
gotta agree and have been using barbercide profressionally for years, I remember back in the 70's when one of my customer's who was a sugical nurse told me that quats like babercide were not being used in hospitals because they actually supported bacterical growth (don't remember if it was gram negative or gram positive.) I do know the label directions have changed over the years even though the product hasn't and now it kills a lot more things than it did in the 70's. Anyway, when I first became a Barber and Cosmetologist (a long time ago) we were required to use alcohol (70%) for sterilizing cutting impliments like razors which then were to be kept in a dry santizer with either UV light or formaldehyde (which is no longer permitted).
No, it's not.
If different people are using the same razor and one of those people has a skin issues or other illness, it might be communicable.
Any razor that's sat around in an antique store for a while or been shipped across country needs nothing more than a good cleaning.
I've noticed several eBay sellers claiming they've "polished, cleaned, and disinfected" a razor. To me, that screams "the finish is ruined for your convenience". I envision someone dropping a razor in a boiling pot of water then taking a grinding wheel to it.
I'd prefer to just take care of that myself instead of some stranger who may not know what the hell they're doing try and "polish and disinfect" a razor for me.
