Hygienic wipes (wet wipes) are emerging personal hygiene products. With the improvement of the quality of life of domestic consumers, wet wipes, like ordinary paper towels, have gradually become necessities in people's daily life. In 2018, it was reported that wet wipes for infants were found to have severely exceeded the standard of fungi. The total number of fungal colonies exceeded the standard by 76,000 times. Nearly 100,000 packs of baby wipes were unqualified, which aroused people's attention to wet wipes.

1. Use occasion

Wet wipes are not only used for general cleansing, but also have special products, specifically for women’s hygiene, infants, women’s unloading, men’s, and disinfectant wipes for medical occasions.

(1) Household: general cleaning or disinfection and wiping (home or out), cosmetics, women's hygiene, baby buttocks cleaning, etc.

(2) Public places: civil aviation, hotels, restaurants, tourist spots, etc. are used for cleaning or wiping.

(3) Medical places: if quaternary ammonium salt disinfectants are used, they have disinfection function and can effectively kill bacteria;

2. Safety performance index and evaluation of wet wipes

To conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the safety and quality of sanitary wipes, it is necessary to evaluate the specifications, strength, dustiness, liquid content, fluorescent whitening agent, decontamination ability, and corrosivity of sanitary wipes. The strength of the wet wipes reflects the quality of the raw materials of the product; the dustiness reflects the production environment of the sanitary wipes; the liquid content reflects the production level and technology of the sanitary wipes; the fluorescent whitening agent, preservatives, microorganisms, etc. can reflect The safety of sanitary wipes. In addition, the pH and toxicity of sanitary wipes can also be measured to determine whether it is safe.

3. Awareness of the health problems of wet wipes

(1) Preservative problem

According to the test report of wet wipe samples in the Shanghai market, it was found that preservatives were detected in 23 of the 50 samples, mainly two preservatives, MIT (methyl isothiazolinone) and CIT (methyl isothiazolinone) . MIT is a high-efficiency preservative that has a good effect on inhibiting the growth of microorganisms, and can inhibit the production of bacteria, fungi, and molds, so it is widely used in the cosmetics industry. CIT is generally used in combination with MIT, and the mixed preservative is called casson.

In the cosmetics industry, both MIT and CIT are restricted ingredients, because at high concentrations, the skin patch test found that MIT and CIT are prone to irritating skin allergies. The number of such cases is increasing. The relevant European associations considered MIT in 2014. Of cosmetics (including cosmetic wipes) can cause contact allergies and allergic dermatitis. For infants and young children, weaker physique and delicate skin, it is more difficult to resist the stimulation of such chemical substances.

Some parents like to use wet wipes to wipe their children's mouth, hands, and buttocks. In actual use, it was found that some of the added ingredients in the wet wipes may make the baby's butt allergic and red. Wash it with water to reduce this risk. Therefore, experts suggest that wet wipes should not be a standard action, and should be used as an option.

(2) Disinfection ability

In recent years, researchers have conducted experiments on the cleaning ability of soaps, ordinary hand sanitizers, disposable hand sanitizers and wet wipes. The results show that soap has the strongest cleaning ability and wet wipes the weakest.

For disinfecting medical wet wipes, because they contain quaternary ammonium salt disinfectants, the bacteria content of the object after wiping is less than 5%, so this kind of special wet wipes can be used for disinfection and cleaning of ICU and other wards. Compared with ordinary wet wipes, if it has a disinfecting effect, it may contain alcohol, and the actual disinfection ability is not ideal.

(3) Scent

Spices and alcohol are considered to be easily irritating ingredients, so the aroma should be selected according to the preferences of consumers, but the added fragrance ingredients increase the risk of skin allergies, so for baby products, it should be natural and pure. .

4. Relevant health standards

In March 2018, my country launched the "Sanitary Wipes Hygiene Requirements" (WS575-2017) as a mandatory standard for the sanitary industry. The National Health and Health Commission included the third category of disinfection product management scope for sanitary incidents. It requires that for sanitary wipes (non-medical), in addition to product microbiological indicators, 90% of the corresponding microorganisms on the surface of the contaminated object must be sterilized. Functions are qualified products. Companies that produce such products must obtain a sanitation license for disinfection product manufacturers before they can produce and sell them. With the introduction of this standard, it will play a positive role in regulating sanitary wipes, and provide effective technical guidance for enterprises, testing and supervision related industries, and at the same time ensure the use of sanitary wipes by the population.