[Vocabulary] Wear/Use hand sanitizer.

[beachboy]

Is it right to say both "Wear hand sanitizer" and "Use hand sanitizer"? Do they have exactly the same meaning?

 

[5jj]

No. 'Wear' is unnatural.

 

[Tdol]

You use it- it evaporates/is absorbed. You wear gloves.

 

[tedmc]

You wear perfume and it evaporates too. I think you say you wear something that you want others to see or smell. You use a sanitizer merely to disinfect your hands.

 

[Tdol]

Good point- I hadn't thought of that; it evaporates, but the smell remains. I squirt my hands with alcohol gel when I come out of a shop, I feel the evaporation and then there's nothing.

 

[jutfrank]

The item one wears doesn't have to be observed by others (think underwear)—it just has to be carried on the body. The idea is that you can go about your business, over time, with the item in place. In several other languages, there are verbs translatable as both carry and wear.

The thing with hand sanitizer is not that it stays on the hands as a protective layer but that it does its job of cleaning the skin and is then used up. That's why use is good but wear doesn't work.