PURSE HYGIENE

PURSES!


I never gave it a thought. Who'd a thunk? Have you ever noticed gals who sit
their purses on public restroom floors - that go directly to their dining
tables? Happens a lot! It's not always the restaurant food that causes
stomach distress.  Sometimes "what you don't know 'will' hurt you"!

Read on...Mom got so upset when a guest came in the door and plopped their
purses down on the counter where she was cooking or setting up the buffet.
She always said that purses are really dirty, because of where they have
been. Smart Momma!!!

It's something just about every woman carries with them. While we may know
what's inside our purses, do you have any idea what's on the outside? Shauna
Lake put purses to the test - for bacteria – with surprising results. You
may think twice about where you put your purse. Women carry purses
everywhere; from the office to public restrooms to the floor of the car.
Most women won't be caught without their purses, but did you ever stop to
think about where your purse goes during the day?

"I drive a school bus, so my purse has been on the floor of the bus a lot,"
says one woman. "On the floor of my car, probably in restrooms," says
another.  "I put my purse in grocery shopping carts, on the floor of
bathroom stalls while changing a diaper," says another woman and of course
in my home which should be clean."

We decided to find out if purses harbor a lot of bacteria. We learned how to
test them at Nelson Laboratories in Salt Lake, and then we set out to test
the average woman's purse. Most women told us they didn't stop to think
about what was on the bottom of their purse. Most said they usually set
their purses on top of kitchen tables and counters where food is prepared.
Most of the ladies we talked to told us they wouldn't be surprised if their
purses were at least a little bit dirty. It turns out purses are so
surprisingly dirty, even the microbiologist who tested them was shocked.

Microbiologist Amy Karren of Nelson Labs says nearly all of the purses
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 purses
could make people very sick. In one sampling, four of five purses tested
positive for salmonella, and that's not the worst of it. "There is fecal
contamination on the purses," says Amy.

Leather or vinyl purses tended to be cleaner than cloth purses, and
lifestyle seemed to play a role.  People with kids tended to have dirtier
purses than those without, with one exception. The purse of one single woman
who frequented nightclubs had one of the worst contaminations of all. "Some
type of feces, or even possibly vomit or something like that," says Amy.


So the moral of this story - your purse won't kill you, but it does have the
potential to make you very sick if you keep it on places where you eat. Use
hooks to hang your purse at home and in restrooms, and don't put it on your
desk, a restaurant table, or on your kitchen countertop. Experts say you
should think of your purse 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 purse on the countertops" - your purse
has gone where every individual before you has spat, coughed, urinated,
emptied bowels, etc!

Do you really want to bring that home with you? The microbiologists at
Nelson also said cleaning a purse will help. Wash cloth purses and use
leather cleaner to clean the bottom of leather purses.


THIS IS WORTH SHARING!!!