Acetone In Rubbing Alcohol?

I have two bottles of rubbing alcohol. One is ethyl alcohol (presumably denatured). One is isopropyl. I’ve seen both before. What I haven’t seen is that the latter bottle lists as an additional ingredient (and clearly smells of) acetone.

Why? And given that I understand acetone to be pretty toxic (we were always warned that it was among the volatile organic solvents (yes, I know alcohol technically is one too) that you should avoid inhaling or touching too much), why would they want to be including it in a household remedy (yes, I know it’s in nail polish remover too, but you don’t tend to rub as much of that on as much of your skin as you might with rubbing alcohol)?

It’s not typcial rubbing alcohol. It’s specially formualted to clean oily skin.

acetone is not particularly toxic. We use it all the time to clean our glassware. Its oral toxicity is about 3g/kg, e.g. a typical male would have to drink one or two glasses of it to kill you. The odd sniff is nothing. The body produces it naturally is small amounts - larger amounts in some diseases such as diabetes. Im not saying it is good for you, but a little is fine.

Aceton is the best hand cleaner ever plus it’s helpful in finding those little nicks and cuts.

Yeah, acetone will make short work of plastics and nail polish (like water will with sugar and salt), but won’t necessarily harm skin.

Guess what rubbing alcohol turns into when your bodies alcohol dehydrogenase gets to it? Acetone.

You’re thinking of acetaldehyde.

Oh, wait, never mind. You said “rubbing alcohol”. The body metabolizes ethanol into acetaldehyde. You’re saying that if you ingest isopropanol, the body metabolizes it into acetone. I’ll have to take your word on that.