72 Hour Emergency Kit Series Week 6: Sanitation and Personal Care

In an emergency, staying clean can help prevent disease.  No need to make a bad situation worse by spreading disease through poor sanitation if you can do something to prevent it.  In addition to preventing disease, cleanliness can be a huge morale boost in a disaster situation.  Have you ever been unable to clean up properly?  Maybe extended hours at work or a camping trip.  Remember how good it felt both physically and emotionally to take a shower afterward?  I’m not saying you’re going to carry a shower in your 72 hour emergency kit, but there are some supplies you can stock in your kit in order to help with general cleanliness and personal hygiene that can provide a similar clean boost.

Emergency Kit Sanitation and Personal Care

Here are some of my favorite products for keeping clean and taking care of myself on the go.  We do a lot of camping and have tested and tried what works best for us.  Remember as you are packing your kit, that it is YOUR kit and personalize any supplies you pack in it!

1. Wipes.  We just use good quality baby wipes, but there are body cleaning wipes that work really well also.  Use them to wipe faces, hands, or any other body part that needs cleaned.

2. Toilet paper.  Maybe this is optional for you and you’re going to use a leaf or something, but I’d rather have a bit of classic TP in my kit.  Remove the paper roll from the center and smash the roll to make it take less space.  You can also use just a partial roll if you want to cut the bulkiness of it.

3.  Hand sanitizer.  Keep the germs at bay while conserving your limited water supply by cleaning hands with hand sanitizer.

4.  Toiletries.  Again, you might think some of these are optional.  Especially you bald guys with the comb and shampoo. ;)  Pack things in your kit that you will use.  If you’re evacuating to a hotel or grandma’s house, it may already be stocked with some of these supplies so you could leave some out and lighten your load.  You decide, but here’s a starter list of toiletries for you:

• soap
• shampoo and conditioner if needed
• lotion
• lip balm
• tooth brush and tooth paste (we have these Wisp pre-pasted travel toothbrushes, you could also make your own toothpaste dots)
• towel (vacuum pack a hand towel, or get some of these compressed towels)
• comb
• hair ties (you with long hair know you’ll want one or more of these to keep it under control!)
• razor
• deodorant

5.  Sunblock.  I’m told this expires yearly, but I’ve personally used old stuff and had it still work okay.  Maybe it just gets less effective the older it gets.  Rotate as needed.  I put some from a big container into a smaller travel sized tube, but you can also get sample size or travel size bottles of sunblock.

6.  Insect repellent.  Especially if you live somewhere that there are bugs!  Insect repellent can keep you from going crazy with mosquitoes, gnats, no-see-ums, or whatever else might be flying around looking to bite or sting you.  You can get this in travel tubes or wipes also.

7.  Feminine hygiene products of your choice.  Tampons have multiple uses besides the obvious.  Check out this article where Creek Stewart explores the survival uses of a tampon.  Pads are fantastic for first aid.  They are made to soak up blood flow, after all.  If you want to go light weight and reusable, a menstrual cup is a fantastic option for your kit!  Here is my review of the DivaCup.

8.  Extra glasses or contacts.  If you need glasses or contacts to see on a regular basis, get some extras in your kit.  When you get a new box of contacts, take a pair out and put them in your kit with a case and some fresh saline solution.  An extra pair of glasses, even if they are a slightly outdated prescription, is better than running around legally blind!

9.  Condoms.  Totally optional, but there are actually a lot of survival uses for condoms besides the obvious use (go with non-lubricated if you want to do anything out of the ordinary with it). I defer to Creek Stewart’s expertise on this one.

And here’s this week’s video in case you just want me to tell you all about it!

What would you add?

Keep preparing! Angela