Coronavirus: e-liquid makers turn to hand sanitiser

Following the example of Lips, a company from Nantes specialising in the manufacture of e-liquids, many e-liquid firms joined the wave of solidarity by offering to produce hand sanitiser gel. A closer look.

Coming to the aid of healthcare staff

It is at Saint-Julien-de-Concelles, in the vineyards near Nantes, that Lips, a company specialising in the manufacture of e-liquids for electronic cigarettes, has added a new string to its bow. Faced with the shortage of hand sanitiser during the Covid-19 pandemic, Lips, like other vaping companies, decided to help healthcare staff by producing hand gel.

To do so, the company follows to the letter the instructions issued by the WHO. The production line has been running at full capacity for a week and the thirty employees have their hands full. The decision was taken by management in order to meet the needs of healthcare staff, who are largely without supplies. Lips had the chemical and technical capacity to do it.

Who are these “improvised hand sanitiser solutions” for?

The first customers interested in this unexpected production are mainly front-line organisations. Nantes agglomération and La Poste, among others, have placed orders, and requests have also reached the Nantes company from Italy and Spain. Private individuals can buy the precious gel too, but with a limit of six bottles per person. The unit price is set at the ceiling rate fixed by the government.

For the moment, between 12,000 and 13,000 bottles are produced each day, but demand is such that the company is considering putting its production staff on shift work, on a two-times-eight pattern.

Other companies follow suit

Who would have thought that the vaping world would turn its hand to making hand sanitiser? Yet Lips is not the only company stepping up production. The Fuu, Revolute and Le French Liquide have also joined this collective effort.

A special mention goes to Kapalina, which donated 10,000 empty 30 ml bottles with pipettes to pharmacies, together with pharmaceutical vegetable glycerine, so that they could make up hand sanitiser gel for their own customers.