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Ladies .. How Clean is Your Purse?
Got this in an email .. thought i would pass it along .. pretty gross if you think about it!
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."
"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, 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 has
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.
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Nathan Fake - Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani Remix) 
