Isopropyl alcohol (aka isopropanol) is an alcohol derived variously from propylene or acetone; it, like most alcohols, loves to bond attractively (semi-chemically?)with water. Isopropyl is okay on your skin, and sold as an external stimulant in an alcohol/water mix. It is also the basis of most perfumes and anything you spray on skin to evaporate, like deodorants.
You'll typically find 90% and 70% concentrations at your drugstore-- and the 70% (140 proof: commonly known as "rubbing alcohol") is okay for most things. At a 70/30 combination, the alcohol is fairly benign, most all of its little atomic arms being busily amorous with the water molecules.
The 180 proof (90% isopropyl) can dissolve some paints, especially over time (exposure). On the skin, it will dry it out, by helping to liberate the water and evaporate with it still attached.
200 proof (100% isopropyl) is used most often in spray cleaners, usually as an "environmentally friendly" (read: government-mandated) substitute for the freon (triflouroethanes) that some have alleged to be a hazard to the global atmosphere. This pure alcohol stuff melts some plastics in a hurry, especially the styrene variety.
Ethanol, or ethyl-alcohol, is grain-alcohol, and it is chemically simpler, but it has nasty grabby Oxygen on one side of its chain, making it more chemically active, and, coincidentally, digestable. It in its pure 200 proof variety, has a bad habit of dissolving LOTS of organic compounds (cheers).
Ethanol is also used industrially, primarily as a degreaser. It can be found as a component of many cleaners, especially the kinds that don't contain any water, because ethanol and water together bind so well, that in low concentration, it hardly acts as a solvent any more powerful than plain water, and doesn't evaporate nearly as fast as it otherwise would (how fast does your rum disappear?). Ethanol is often used to "chase" water out of a fuel-system, for instance: it grabs water droplets and forces them to mix evenly with fuel, rather than floating around in globs on the bottom of a tank. While isopropyl would do this, ethanol is much better at it.
When people say: "isopropyl", it is likely they mean the most common, Rubbing Alcohol, 70% variety, which has to say "70% Isopropyl" on it rather prominently, in order to dissuade fools from mistaking it for an ethanol, and drinking it.
Most Ethanols not obtained in a liquor store (ie., at a hardware shop) are poisoned with a chemical to MAKE them undrinkable, a process called "deNaturing". The fact that Isopropyl is a different alcohol altogether, derived from petrol or paper processing, means it STARTS OUT undrinkable, so it NEVER says "denatured" on the label, so the manufacturers/gov't agencies put the word ISOPROPYL really large on the bottles, hoping you'll get the hint, this stuff makes your olive taste really really bad.
And so the words Rubbing Alcohol and Isopropyl Alcohol are now nearly universally taken to mean that bottle of 70% stuff that is cold as it evaporates on the skin. (Buy a bottle of 90% just to try that experiment, by the way-- it feels lukewarm as it evaporates.)
But yes, 70% isopropyl is what you can use for many household cleaning jobs. It is good at dissolving smoke-tar, grime, and mostly-water-soluble stuff too, with the advantage of evaporating much faster than water.
On some very "loose-chain" plastics, like low-grade styrene and ABStyrene, it may eventually "haze" the plastic slightly white after repeated exposures (which can be buffed out); this is about the extent of its damage potential. On most other plastics, it is perfectly well-behaved.
That is the ethanol/isopropyl/'rubbing' alcohol story. MY bad experience with the acrylic printer cover (noted in an earlier post) involved a cleaner that had ethanol; Viktor used 70% isopropyl and had no problem.
Clear? :-)