In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
surgical spirit is ethanol adulterated with methanol but without the
purple dye.

Although it has other alduterants to make it a bit more 'medical'

In the UK, surgical spirit also contains oil, and a topical anaesthetic
(usually asprin as methyl salicylate).
The formulation in different countries varies widely though.

Isopropyl is always the best bet for degreasing.

Boots lens cleaner for example

Really? I have several other lens cleaners here, but they all emphasise
alcohol free, although they smell of some organic solvent.

Reminds me, my father went to clean his specs a few weeks ago, but
they were just getting more and more smeary. I looked at the lens
cleaner (which he could no longer read by this stage), and he'd
picked up a bottle a spray-on latex by mistake.
That did take some effort to get off...

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]