* I also want to include men who carry briefcases of any kind.
The same purse that was on the floor gets carried home...do you set it on your kitchen table or counter?
Sometimes "what you don't know will hurt you"
It's something just about every woman carries with them.
Do you have any idea what's on the outside of your handbag?
Handbags go everywhere; from the office to public toilets to the floor of the car.
Have you ever stop to think about where your handbag goes during the day?
Most women probably don't even stop to think about what was on the bottom of their handbag.
It turns out handbags are so surprisingly dirty.
Microbiologist Amy Karen of Nelson Labs says nearly all of the handbags
tested were not only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds of bacteria..
Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can cause
serious skin infections, and salmonella and e-coli found on the handbags
Could make people very sick.
In one sampling, four of five handbags tested positive for salmonella, and that's not the worst of it.
"There is fecal contamination on the handbags," says Amy.
Leather or vinyl handbags tended to be cleaner than cloth handbags, and lifestyle seemed to play a role.
People with kids tended to have dirtier handbags than those without, with one exception.
The handbag of one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of the worst contamination's of all.
"Some type of feces, or possibly vomit" says Amy.
So the moral of this story - your handbag won't kill you, but it does have the
potential to make you very sick if you keep it by places where you eat..
Use hooks to hang your handbag at home and in toilets,
And don't put it on your desk, a restaurant table,or on your kitchen countertop.
Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a pair of shoes.
If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your countertops,
that's the same thing you're doing when you put your handbag on
The countertops - your handbag has gone where individuals before
you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, emptied bowels, etc!
Do you really want to bring that home with you?
The microbiologists at Nelson also said cleaning a handbag will help.
Wash cloth handbags and use leather cleaner to clean the bottom of leather handbags.
