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Ladies, Good Advice

   Written by on July 2, 2020 at 1:14 pm

Women rarely go anywhere without a handbag, which means if she enters a place full of germs, so does her handbag.  Even before this coronavirus that is spreading, ladies could end up carrying around microbes that could make one sick all day long, depending how careful she is with her handbag.

This reporter has often wondered about this problem and would like to warn all women about the dangerous places they place their purses!

As a woman, have you ever really noticed handbags that are placed on public toilet floors?  The next thing they do, after washing their hands, might be to go directly to their dining tables and set their bag on the table or on the floor again.  It happens a lot!  It’s not always the restaurant food that causes stomach distress.  Sometimes “what you don’t know will hurt you”!

While we may know what is inside our handbags, do you have any idea what’s on the outside?  Handbags have been put to the test for bacteria with surprising results!  One may think twice about where a handbag should be placed so read this and share with a friend.

Women and girls carry handbags everywhere – from the office to public toilets, to the floor of the car and in between bleachers at a ballgame.  Most females won’t be caught without their handbags, but did you ever stop to think about what your handbag touches during the day?

One woman said, “I drive a school bus so my handbag has been on the bus floor a lot.” Another lady says, “I put my handbag in grocery shopping carts, and of course, in my home which should be clean.”

According to information from a hospital email, Nelson Labs in Salt Lake City tested the average woman’s handbag.  Most women said they didn’t stop to think about what was on the bottom of their bags.  Usually, when they come home, they automatically set their handbags on top of kitchen tables and counters where food is prepared.

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 out of five handbags tested positive for salmonella!

Leather or vinyl handbags tended to be cleaner than cloth ones and lifestyle seems to play a role.  People with kids tended to have dirtier handbags than those without kids and that is understandable.  So, the moral of the story – your handbag won’t kill you but it does have the potential to make someone very sick if kept on places where one eats or prepares food.

The answer:  Use hooks to hang your handbag at home, in toilets, on vacation, at work, etc.  Don’t put your handbag on your desk, a restaurant table or on your kitchen countertop or table!  

This is an idea.  Think of your handbag the same way you would think of a pair of shoes.  If you think about putting a pair of shoes on your countertops, that’s the same thing you’re doing when you put your handbag there.  Your handbag has gone where individuals before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, etc.!

Do you really want to bring sickness to your home?  The microbiologists at Nelson Labs said that cleaning the outside of a handbag will help.  Wash cloth ones and use leather cleaner to clean bottoms of leather handbags, and use any all-purpose cleaner on vinyl.  Always carry instant hand sanitizer with you and use it often, not just because of coronavirus, but because there are dangerous germs everywhere!

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