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Organic hand sanitizer for crazy parents

Kill em all with CleanWell, says the organic hand sanitizing company.

Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Michael Kanellos is editor at large at CNET News.com, where he covers hardware, research and development, start-ups and the tech industry overseas.
Michael Kanellos

Attention, parents of school-age children. Are you worried about a growing Purell addiction? CleanWell has the hand sanitizer for you.

The San Francisco-based company has come out with an alcohol-free, all-natural hand sanitizer. I got some samples at the ThinkGreen conference last week and my hands have been free of epidemic-causing bacteria ever since.

Need a sanitizing spritz? Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com

The company claims it kills Listeria monocytogenes, Candida (we can make it together) albicans, Streptococcus pygenes, and Salmonella enterica. You can't spray it on chicken, but the salmonella killing would be great for kitchen sanitizing. Spray CleanWell on your hands and it kills over 99 percent of these germs in 15 seconds, according to the company.

The active ingredient is called Ingenium. It's not from the Periodic Table of the Elements. Instead, it's a mix of essential oils that kill germs in concert. The product literature is great. It shows a kid hugging a deer. Most people would think: "cute." To moms, that deer is just a rat with horns.

The 1-ounce spray bottle pictured here costs $7.99 and is good for 225 sprays. (That's a lot of deer hugging.) The company also sells wipes and other products.