More than 30 million operative procedures are performed each year in the USA.1 Despite the implementation of a bundle of preventive measures such as preoperative use of hair clippers or no hair removal (as opposed to shaving), initial administration of perioperative antibiotics within 1 hour before surgery, and maintenance of normothermia, normoglycaemia and hyperoxia during surgery and for the first 2 hours after surgery, between 300 000 and 500 000 patients develop a surgical site infection (SSI). These infections increase length of hospital stay, hospital costs and mortality.2 A patient's skin is a major source of micro-organisms; reducing the pathogens at the operating site by improving skin antisepsis may help decrease the …