Question

When you put a small amount of sanitizer on your hand you feel cold. Why is it so!

Answer 1

Explanation:

Hand sanitizer leaves your hands feeling cool because the particles in the gel which posses the most amount of energy are able to evaporate from the gel and off your hands. This results in only the particles with low energy levels to be left on your hand which therefore reduces the hands overall temperature.

Answer 2

Answer:

I noticed, and perhaps many others have too, that the application of hand sanitizer (mainly ethanol), leaves one's hands feeling rather chilly after application.

What is responsible for this phenomena? Is it the high heat of vaporization of hand sanitizer? However, explanation doesn't hold water; water has a standard heat of vaporization of 40.65 kJ/mol while ethanol has a heat of vaporization of 38.56 kJ/mol.

Could it be the low boiling point of ethanol? Hand sanitizer disappears (vaporizes) within seconds upon rubbing the hands together. Water, however, does not.