Diluents & swabs
Skin prep and the water you mix with. Alcohol swabs are the single highest turnover line in most rooms and the easiest to under order, so they come in two hundreds rather than hundreds. They are 70 per cent isopropyl, which is the concentration that actually works: pure alcohol evaporates before it has done anything, and the water in a 70 per cent solution is what lets it stay wet long enough to matter. Bacteriostatic water and sterile water are not the same thing and the difference matters. Bacteriostatic water is preserved with benzyl alcohol, which is what lets a vial keep once it has been broached. Sterile water has no preservative, so it is single use and the rest of the vial is waste. If you are mixing something you will come back to, the preserved one is the one you want, and mixing a powder with sterile water covers how much to add and why the volume changes the concentration. Chlorhexidine where alcohol alone is not enough, and povidone iodine where chlorhexidine is not tolerated. Sodium chloride sachets for irrigation. You will want syringes and needles to go with it, and what the numbers on a needle mean if the gauges are not yet second nature. We supply the diluent and the equipment, never the compound.
Prices are indicative while the range is being finalised, and you cannot check out yet. Open any product to pre-order it, which takes an email address and no payment, and the price and the pack size are confirmed before anything is charged.
Not sure which one you need?
Three plain questions and the Gauge Finder tells you the thickness, the length and how many. Nothing you answer is stored.
Bacteriostatic or sterile water
Bacteriostatic water contains 0.9% benzyl alcohol as a preservative, which is what makes a vial multi-dose: it can be entered more than once within the in-use period its instructions give. Sterile water for injection has no preservative and is single use.
That is the whole difference. Both are diluents, neither is a medicine, and which one you need is a question for your prescriber rather than for us.
What an alcohol swab is, and what size to get
An alcohol swab is a small pad saturated with seventy per cent isopropyl, sealed in a foil sachet so it is still wet when you open it. The sachet is the product as much as the pad is: an open tub dries from the top down and the swab at the top is not the swab you think it is.
Sizes are quoted folded or unfolded and the unfolded figure is the one that matters, because that is the area you can actually wipe. A standard swab opens to around 6cm square, which covers a vial top several times over and a patch of skin once.
Alcohol swabs are listed by sachet count. The thing that runs out first in any room is always the swabs, which is why they come in 100 and 200.
Seventy per cent, and why stronger is worse
Seventy per cent isopropyl in water kills more effectively than ninety or a hundred, which sounds wrong and is not. Alcohol works by denaturing protein and it needs water present to do it. Pure alcohol dries the outside of a cell and stops there.
The other half of it is evaporation time. Ninety-nine per cent flashes off in a couple of seconds, and the contact time is the thing doing the work. Seventy per cent stays wet long enough to matter.
Let it dry rather than wiping it off. A wiped surface has had a few seconds of contact and a dry one has had the full thirty.
Saline, and when a sachet beats a bottle
Sodium chloride at 0.9 per cent is the routine choice for cleaning, and it comes as single use sachets or as a bottle. A sachet is opened for the job and finished with, which is the point: once a bottle is open its contents are no longer sterile, whatever the label says about the date.
Saline sachets are listed in 30mL, which is about one dressing change. A bottle makes sense for irrigation volumes and nothing smaller.
Skin prep, in order of how long it keeps working
An alcohol swab acts fast and stops working as soon as it has evaporated, which is fine for an injection site. Chlorhexidine in alcohol keeps working after it dries. Povidone iodine is the one to reach for where chlorhexidine is contraindicated.
All three have to dry before the needle goes in. Wet prep stings and has not finished working.
Questions about diluents & swabs
If yours is not here, the contact form routes to the person who can answer it.
What is the difference between bacteriostatic and sterile water?
Do you sell peptides or hormones?
What size is an alcohol swab?
Should I wipe the alcohol off or let it dry?
Why 70% isopropyl and not stronger?
Know when it lands
We are still building the range. Leave an address and we will tell you what has come in, without making a project of it.
Restock notices and new guides. Two or three emails a month at most, one click to stop, and we do not sell or share the address.