A lot of people are totally grossed out by public bathrooms.
If you're someone who thinks bathroom stalls are disgusting, you probably stack toilet seat covers all over the toilet, making sure not a single piece of plastic is visible.
You might even hover over the toilet, not fully sitting down, so as to avoid all the gross germs on the toilet seat.
Plenty of people just avoid public bathrooms entirely, "holding it" until they get home or somewhere else equally comfortable.
So, what would you think if I told you that the toilet seat actually isn't the object with the most germs in any bathroom stall?
The item with the most germs? Your handbag!
A study conducted by Initial Washroom Hygiene found that women's purses are actually contaminated with more bacteria than the average toilet. How gross is that?
The study also looked at individual items in women's purses to find out which had the most germs.
Read on to find out what researchers found!
[H/T Daily Mail]
If you thought the object with the most germs in a bathroom is the toilet seat, think again.
According to the UK's Initial Washroom Hygiene, research shows that the average toilet handle has less bacteria than the handles of women's purses.
In addition to swabbing the outside of the handbags, researchers swabbed the insides of bags. They also swabbed the typical items women carry within their purses.
The amount of bacteria found on and in the handbags is completely astounding.
Researchers found that 20% of handbag handles had so much bacteria that it could cause cross-contamination.
Additionally, 1 in 5 purses carry so much bacteria, they can actually pose a risk to human health.
Within the bags, the dirtiest item was face or hand cream, with lipstick and mascara coming in a close second.
If you're lucky enough to have an actual leather bag, you also have to be aware that leather houses the most bacteria because of its soft, spongy texture.
A technical manager at Initial Hygiene explains, "Handbags come into regular contact with our hands and a variety of surfaces, so the risk of transferring different germs onto them is very high, especially as bags are rarely cleaned."
If you're shuddering at the thought of how gross your bag is, don't worry — there are definitely ways to solve the problem.
Keeping your hands clean is the most important thing you can do when trying to keep your purse clean.
Other things you can do to keep your bag clean include regularly cleaning your personal items with antibacterial gel or wipes.
Using hand sanitizer is also a good way to keep your hands and belongings clean.
Did you have any idea how gross your purse was? I definitely didn't!
If you think other women need to know how dirty their purses are, please SHARE this article with them on Facebook!
