Do I really need to wear protective clothing while using isopropyl alcohol? I recently purchased a 500ml bottle of 99% isopropyl alcohol (aka isopropanol aka rubbing alcohol) for everyday use at home. The label for the bottle worryingly states:


  Wear protective gloves/protective clothing/eye protection/face protection




I'm surprised by this particular warning because I've always known of isopropanol being used for such everyday household appliances as cleaning and sterilising wounds, and have never known even the experts to wear or recommend wearing any sort of protective clothing while doing so. 

The most I expect to handle the isopropanol is when pouring the solution from the 500ml bottle into smaller dropper bottles, and after that either using the 500ml bottle to wet cleaning cloths, or the dropper bottle pipettes to apply the solution directly to electronics.

Do I need to wear protective clothing for such applications? If not, at what volumes/for what applications would it be necessary to start wearing protective clothing?
You'd be surprised at what things you might not think of as "chemicals" can do.  One of my co-workers got a spritz of  oil in his eye while peeling an orange, and now he is afraid when I tell him that I eat orange rinds because they are rich in vitamin C.  The moral of the story: your eyes are so sensitive that at the very least, eye protection is a must with just about anything in the lab, even oils.  I second Jon Custer's suggestion of reading the MSDS.