Soap

[Doolallygirl]

Is soap self-cleansing? Otherwise surely it would be just as dirty as your hands/other body part as when you last used it....do I sound like a clean-freak?!

[beenee]

Nope you sound like someone with good sense. I wonder the same thing and so I never use bars of soap - always liquid handwash. I have a thing about towels too, but that's another thread!

[IggyB]

soap doesn't bother me - as i theorize that the first initial lather between the hands removes the top layer of the soap meaning you get a nice clean bar afterwards. But towels... now there i have issues - can't bring myself to use the communal hand towel (yuk) - so have to have a special one, even my own towels have to be the right way round e.g. a head end and a foot end (to the point of having to put labels on the towels in order to tell which end is which)... am i ill or just compulsive or both

[secretspirit]

I always think this about taps as well - people touch them with dirty hands and then when you turn them off surely the germs transfer to you? If you think you're bad Doolallygirl I've actually considered carrying round disposable antiseptic wipes to clean door handles etc but was worried I'd turn into Howard Hughes....

[enigma]

I hate it when i am using public toilets and whilst washing my hands , notice that someone else has headed straight from the toilet , fixed their hair/applied lippy but not bothered to wash their hands. Yuk ! It means that when I leave the toilet , I try to open the door without touching the handle so as not to pick up the germs which have undoubtedly been deposited on the door handle. I do not have an obsessive compulsive disorder regarding cleanliness but I don't think that it's a lot to ask for people to have a sense of pride and respect for others by not soiling areas which others have to touch. I think that these people should sit down and watch footage of how germs from unwashed hands spreads so easily. It only takes a minute to wash your hands and it repulses me when I see how lazy and selfish some people can be.

[cinderelli]

I must clarify, I DO wash my hands after using the toilet, but when woman go to the toilet they don't actually touch the urine so why is it so important to do it?

[Doolallygirl]

Because just because! Eugh! Toilet paper is particularly thin especially in public toilets, and you don't have to actually touch the urine. It's as said before, the toilet door holds germs from unhygenic people etc. I NEVER leave my hands unwashed. Possibly because I was made to take my hygene certificate at work and that involved a lengthy video on bacteria spread. Bleugh. EVERYONE WASH UR HANDS! (with the dispensible soap not bars!)

[smudge]

I shake my head in amazement at the amount of women who use the loo, come out & walk straight past the sinks! It only takes a couple of ticks to rinse & dry your hands, so why can't they just do it? Yuk!

[secretspirit]

They should do one of those adverts like the one with the chicken where some kind of glowing substance shows how the germs spread from the lady to her daughter because she didn't wash her hands. I'm also amazed by people who eat nuts etc out of public bowls on bars or who take salt/pepper from those little finger bowls on restaurant tables. How long have they been there? Who else has been dipping into them? Eurgh.

[smudge]

Yes secretspirit, I bet not all men & women wash their hands in pub toilets, that's why I never eat the nuts, etc., from the bowls on the bar either - uurrgg! (BTW,I like your AB name).

[secretspirit]

Thanks smudge! My husband says he thinks only about 30% of men in pub toilets ever wash their hands, and when you think what they've been touching I don't really want to share that. Of course he always washes his.

[Lizzy]

If I remember correctly our microbiology test, (which had us touching agar plates with our hands, then a different plate with our hands having just washed them in water only and then touching a third plate having washed them with water and a bar of soap), revealed that a bar of soap can actually hold and transfer bacteria back on to our hands. Hence it's much better to use liquid soap and for those who are seriously worried you can get this new liquid anitbacterial gel that you rub into your hands and doesn't need to washing off with water therefore you need not worry about that tap scenario! However you may want make a big deal of doing this or pretend to wash your hands when in a public toilet, else you may black-listed as one of THOSE people!!

[gemagination]

I also have all of these hygiene worries, soap, towels, HANDLES ugh, nuts etc. But actually if i go somewhere that i think looks really really disgusting apart from not touching anything in the toilet, i won't actually wash my hands in there because of the fact that all of these things in the loos, are too gross for words and i figure i can cope with my own bacteria for a couple of minutes until i find somewhere else to wash them! is that gross do you reckon, or in a weird way quite sensible? also i heard this thing that women have dirtier hands that men BECAUSE they wash them more often? any thoughts on this?

[katona07]

Fortunately most all mammals have a highly developed immune sytem which keeps us safe from things real and imagined

[ALEXbian]

even when you do wash your hands, you need to scrub them for at least 15 seconds for them to be clean.. how many people do you see doing that?? 15 seconds is quite a long time if you time people...

[vikki1825]

As part of my nurse training we had to do experiments with a light box to show the germs on our hands. The conclusion was 3 squirts of liquid soap and soft disposable hand towels are the best way of removing transient organisms. We have to knock taps on/off with our elbows too! LOL