Re: Rubbing Alcohol vs Denatured Alcohol

There are many types of alcohols.  The alcohol we drink (booze) is 
ETHANOL.  The alcohol present in rubbing alcohol is ISOPROPYL 
ALCOHOL.  You may already know that many products use alcohols.  
Examples are windshield washer fluid, de-icers, anti-freeze, glass cleaners, 
etc.. Most of these (if not all...I'm not sure) use denatured alcohols.  

     A denatured alcohol is a mixture of ethanol with a denaturent (there are 
over 80 legal denaturents available and methanol is one of them)  This 
makes the ethanol undrinkable and ready for commercial use.  A good 
example of a denatured alcohol is the new ethanol gasolines.  This is a 
mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.


So...rubbing alcohol is ISOPROPYL alcohol and a denatured alcohol is an 
ethanol-denaturent blend. (I am not sure if any type of alcohol blended with 
a denaturent is called a denatured alcohol). I hope this answers your 
question.  I got all of this information on the web so if you need additional 
information, I suggest you get 7 or 8 different search engines and start 
digging!

Have a good day.