All The Germy Shit You Keep In Your Bathroom That’s Filthier Than The Toilet

Bathrooms.

They’re wet. They’re slippery. Provided they have subpar ventilation, they can smell bad.

When you think of germs in a bathroom, your mind might automatically plop to the toilet.

If you have legitimate germ-focused OCD, I would highly recommend clicking out of this article stat, save you have a conniption. 

If not, stick around: here’s a little PSA on which bits of your bathroom are low-key germy as all frick.

Netted poufs might look pretty and give you a foamy lather, but they’re a breeding ground for bacteria. 

You lather the pouf up, rub it vigorously all over your body and hang it up in your shower, only to get it according the next morning.

The netting catches your dead skin cells, and that, coupled with the moisture of the shower, is a recipe for rapid-growing bacteria, yeast and mould. 

Further, if you’re using the pouf to exfoliate yourself after you’ve just shaved – don’t. Any nicks may prove to be an entry point for the bacteria to make its way into ya body. 

Dunno about you, but I’ve had poufs I’ve kept for over a year. Best to chuck ’em in the bin and use your hands.

Counterproductive. Utterly counterproductive.

You wash your hands, and if you’re doing it properly, that’ll take you 20 seconds with a fair smattering of soap lathered up past your wrist.

Your hands are dripping, and you reach for the hand towel to dry them. Big mistake.

A little while back a microbiologist by the name of Dr. Charles Gerba tested over 500 towels across the U.S. and Canada, and found a fair few incidences of e-coli and salmonella. Just a couple of fun, deadly germs.

”You wash your hands and you dry it in the towel and then maybe you had some e-coli or salmonella on there and they get into the towel,” Gerba told NBC News. “It’s wet. It’s moist. They grow. You may start out with a few [germs], but in a few days you’ve got millions.”

What’s the alternative?

It’s a bit unrealistic, but it’s best to wash hand towels as often as you would bath towels – every three uses.

I wouldn’t be leaving my toothbrush in a Jonas‘ brother’s bathroom, that’s for sure.

Butter mightn’t melt in your mouth, but bacteria certainly hangs out there.

The average toothbrush can contain 10 million bacteria or more, according to a study outta University of Manchester in England. 

There are a few ways to reduce this. First, don’t flush your toilet without closing the lid. When you flush, germs can spread up to six metres. Flushing literally projects germs into the air, hence why the toilet has a lid in the first place. If your toothbrush is on the sink near the toilet, it’ll no doubt have poop germs on it.

Instead, keep your toothbrush in a cabinet or drawer. Don’t keep it in one of those airtight containers though, or it won’t dry out properly in-between uses. 

Turns out the shower curtain sticking to your butt is the least of your worries.

Shower curtains are like a SBD fart. They hang there, unassumingly, until boom it hits you in the face that it’s covered in a thin film of gunky goo which is 100% mould.

It’s called soap scum, and while it can gather on the tiles in your shower too, it’s super common on infrequently changed shower curtains. 

Vinyl shower curtains are a breeding ground for microbes that can lead to infection. Buy a curtain you can easily detatch and wash, and do that once every few months. 

Similar to the hand towel, the bar of soap is a contentious item. 

It’s designed to clean your hands, but the jury’s out as to whether it holds onto the dirt and grim of your hands when you lather it up. While there’s no hard evidence either way, you’re probably better off sticking to those automatic soap dispensers. The less you touch, the less you can be hurt.