Your hands, up close, are anything but smooth. With peaks and valleys, folds and rifts, there are plenty of hiding places for a virus to stick. If you then touch your face, the virus can infect you. But there are two extraordinarily simple ways you can keep that from happening: soap and water, and hand sanitizer. So which is better? Alex Rosenthal and Pall Thordarson investigate. [Directed by Artrake Studio, narrated by Addison Anderson].

Alex Rosenthal and Pall Thordarson: Which is better: Soap or hand sanitizer?

Which is better: Soap or hand sanitizer?

Soap dismantles the virus's protective lipid layer in seconds, making hand-washing with soap and water the frontline defense.

Soap disrupts viruses with lipid membranes, effectively dismantling their protective layer and neutralizing them upon washing.

Alcohol in hand sanitizers destabilizes virus structures, causing protein spikes to crumble and preventing cellular infection.