Hypochlorous acid

Reposted from my original post on Reddit r/eczema with only some light edits. Note the top comment on that post is calling me “the Walter White of eczema”, which I take as a compliment! 🧑‍🔬

This is a bit of a long post but over the last couple of months I’ve gone down the rabbit hole on hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and wanted to share what I’ve learned. First I want to sincerely thank the r/eczema community for making me aware of HOCl in the first place. Before a year ago I hadn’t even heard of it and now that I understand it better it’s been a total game changer in managing my hand eczema. 🙏

So yes, the hype is real. For sanitizing & disinfecting, HOCl is just so much better than anything else, like alcohol and bleach which both irritate and dry out the skin. (I will say I’ve had good results with diluted bleach baths in the past but with HOCl these are no longer necessary.)

HOCl Benefits

• It’s a broad spectrum killer, destroying virtually all forms of bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
• It’s more effective than bleach or alcohol, killing not only more types of pathogens but also a higher percentage of them within a population (99.9999% vs 99.99%).
• It destroys bacteria in such a way that makes it immune to the effects of antibacterial resistance.
• It doesn’t irritate or dry out the skin nearly as much, if at all.
• It reduces to saline water after less than a minute, making it easy and safe to handle.

(If you doubt any of this, please read the WHO report.)

Most people with eczema probably already know why all of this is important, but just in case: pathogens, especially staph aureus and fungi, love to take up residence in patchy skin areas, and when they do, it makes it much more difficult for your skin to heal. The fact that a lot of us eczema sufferers tend to avoid soaps due to allergies and dryness makes these types of infections even more likely. Applying HOCl effectively removes infection from the equation.

After learning of all those incredible benefits I started wondering why HOCl doesn’t completely replace all other traditional disinfectants. I think there are two reasons:

1. It’s expensive.

HOCl is actually really cheap to make (see below) but it’s still a niche product so companies are able to charge more. The stuff I was buying was almost $20 for just 8 oz.

2. It’s chemically unstable.

This is the big one. When HOCl is working you should be able to detect a slight chlorine smell when spraying it on your skin. But I started to notice that what I was buying would either lose that smell over time or never have it in the first place. The main reason this happens is that HOCl loses its effectiveness at temperatures above 77°F / 25°C. Especially in the summer months, it’s likely that any HOCl you buy has already been exposed to those temperatures! Which brings me to my first few tips:

Tip #1: Buy HOCl locally if possible. Delivery from Amazon etc. could mean that it sat in the back of a hot delivery van. While there’s no guarantee that delivery to stores in a shipping truck will be any better, products like this should be climate-controlled during shipping.

Tip #2: If it’s warm in your home, store your HOCl in the refrigerator. Again, the cutoff is 77°F / 25°C. If it gets warmer than that at any time of the day, keep it in the fridge.

Tip #3: Don’t pour HOCl from one container into another. It reacts to air so keeping it in its original container is best. Also don’t shake the container.

Those tips should address the issue of it being unstable. But what about the price?

Tip #4: Make your own!

Making HOCl at Home

It’s actually pretty easy. Here’s what you’ll need:

• RO or distilled water. If you don’t have an RO filter, check with local grocery stores. Some will fill your gallon containers for about $0.50 a gallon.
• Electrolytic element: $14 on Amazon.
• White vinegar, to bring down the pH.
• Kosher salt (i.e. without iodine).
• Chlorine test strips: $15 on Amazon.
• 1 or 2 continuous spray bottles: $7 on Amazon.
• Optional: a pH meter or pH test strips.

A few notes on safety:

• Making HOCl in this way can produce small amounts of chlorine and hydrogen gas. I’ve never noticed more than a faint whiff of chlorine, but please work in a well-ventilated area and keep away from flames.
• This isn’t the same as mixing bleach and vinegar, but obviously do not add bleach, ammonia, or any other cleaner to the mixture.
• You’re putting an electrical device in water, so use a GFCI outlet (the kind with test/reset buttons) and unplug it before touching the water.
• Use an electrolytic element with titanium or platinum-coated electrodes, and throw out any batch that turns cloudy or discolored.
• Let it cool before bottling, label the bottles, and keep them away from kids.
• And the usual disclaimer: I’m not a doctor or a chemist. Try it on a small patch of skin first, and check with your dermatologist if you’re unsure.

Ingredients

• 600ml water (RO or distilled)
• 2/3 tsp kosher salt
• White vinegar

Directions

1. Heat the 600ml water to 125°F / 52°C. I use a 1L glass measuring cup.
2. If you’re able to test pH, take a measurement and keep adding a drop of vinegar until you reach a pH of about 4. If you’re not able to measure pH, adding a half-capful of vinegar should be fine. This doesn’t need to be exact. (During the process the pH will rise, hopefully to a final target of around 5.)
3. Add the salt and stir until completely dissolved.
4. Put the electrolytic element into the water and plug it in (use common sense here: keep water away from the AC socket, etc.).
5. Every few minutes, give the water a stir with the electrolytic element.
6. After 15 minutes, start testing the chlorine levels. Keep testing every 5 minutes or so until 200ppm is reached.

For me, this takes about 30 minutes total and fills two big (300ml) spray bottles. That’s about $50 of HOCl! And after the up-front ~$40 investment, each batch costs next to nothing.

BTW hypochlorous acid isn’t just for skin. It’s great on countertops, food, cutting boards, keyboard/mouse/phone surfaces, wound care, athlete’s foot, the list goes on and on. (Yep, I’m now this guy.)

So as they say, this has been my TED talk on hypochlorous acid! I hope others find this as useful and helpful as I do.