"It Wouldn't Evaporate No Matter How Much I Rubbed": The Sweet "Sanitizer" That Left a Tourist Baffled at a Cafe

Controversy Over Mixed Placement on Cafe Condiment Bars
Foreign Tourists Say "Hard to Tell Them Apart"
Many Accidents Involving Children

A Taiwanese tourist visiting Korea shared online a mishap he experienced at a cafe in Hongdae, which has prompted a variety of reactions. In his post, he said he mistakenly used liquid syrup as hand sanitizer and ended up in an awkward situation. Some foreign tourists related to his experience, while others pointed out that he had not been careful enough.

A post by a Taiwanese tourist who mistook a liquid syrup for hand sanitizer and actually used it, only to get into trouble, has become a hot topic among netizens. Screenshot from SNS.

On the 23rd, Yonhap News TV reported that the story of a Taiwanese tourist who recently visited Korea and mistook syrup for hand sanitizer at a cafe has become a hot topic. The writer, who posted the story on social media, explained that after drinking coffee at a cafe in Hongdae, Seoul, and returning his cup, he went to the condiment bar and used a product there, thinking it was hand sanitizer. He said he saw the number printed on the bottle and assumed it referred to the alcohol content, then pressed the pump twice and rubbed the liquid on his hands.

He recounted, "I kept rubbing my hands for quite a while, but it wouldn’t evaporate, and when I smelled it, it was sweet." He added that when he later checked the product name using a translation application, he realized it was syrup, not hand sanitizer. The post has been viewed more than 400,000 times and spread rapidly, as foreign tourists who visited Korea after the COVID-19 pandemic shared similar experiences and expressed their sympathy. Some foreigners said, "It wasn’t easy to tell the difference when I first visited." Among Korean netizens, there were also comments such as, "We are so used to it that we never considered that foreigners might get confused." On the other hand, some argued, "It’s hard to understand how someone could be confused when the bottle clearly says 'syrup' on it." The writer explained, "I was flustered at the time, and the letters were small, so I didn’t check them properly."

Meanwhile, cases of confusing hand sanitizer with syrup have often occurred since the pandemic, as the use of hand sanitizer in cafes became commonplace. Screenshot from social media

Meanwhile, incidents of confusing hand sanitizer with syrup have frequently occurred since the pandemic, as the use of hand sanitizer in cafes became routine. In contrast to the above case, there was an incident in 2022 in which a customer mistook hand sanitizer for syrup, added it to coffee, and then complained to the cafe. It was reported that the cafe had placed both beverage syrup and hand sanitizer together on the condiment bar in accordance with headquarters guidelines.

Damage related to hand sanitizer is also evident in actual statistics. According to the Korea Consumer Agency, there were a total of 69 reported cases of damage related to hand sanitizer in 2020, a 17-fold increase from 4 cases in 2019. Among 55 cases where the affected body part could be identified, 73% (40 cases) involved eye injuries, and 20% (11 cases) involved damage to the digestive system caused by swallowing hand sanitizer. Notably, of the 40 eye-injury cases, 60% (24 cases) involved children aged 14 or younger. Among the 11 cases of ingestion, 6 occurred when people mistakenly added hand sanitizer to drinks in cafes, thinking it was syrup, and the rest involved infants or toddlers swallowing it at home.

There are also calls within the cafe industry for measures to reduce such confusion. Since the pandemic, it has become common practice to place hand sanitizer on condiment bars for quarantine convenience, but as the number of foreign tourists increases, the risk of such mix-up accidents is also growing. Meanwhile, the Korea Consumer Agency recommends that if hand sanitizer gets into the eyes, it should be thoroughly rinsed out immediately with running water, and if it is ingested, people should not try to induce vomiting but should visit a medical institution.