hello new yorkers~

i got this email and it's freaking me out.

Handbags 

Have you ever noticed gals who sit their handbags on public toilet 

floors - then go directly to their dining tables and set it on the 

table? 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 guests came in the door and plopped their 

handbags down on the counter where she was cooking or setting up food. 

She always said that handbags are really dirty, because of where they 

have been. Smart Mom!!! 

It's something just about every woman carries with them. While we 

may know what's inside our handbags, do you have any idea what's on the 

outside? Women carry handbags everywhere; from the office to public 

toilets to the floor of the car. Most women won't be caught without 

their handbags, but did you ever stop to think about where your handbag 

goes during the day. 

"I drive a school bus, so my handbag has been on the floor of the 

bus a lot," says one woman. "On the floor of my car, and in toilets." "I 

put my handbag in grocery shopping carts, on the floor of the toilet," 

says another woman "and of course in my home which should be clean." 

We decided to find out if handbags 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 handbag. 

Most women told us they didn't stop to think about what was on the 

bottom of their handbag. Most said at home they usually set their 

handbags 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 handbags were at least a little bit dirty. It turns out handbags 

are so surprisingly dirty, even the microbiologist who tested them was 

shocked. 

Microbiologist Amy Karen of Nelson Labs says 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 of five handbags tested positive for 

salmonella, and that's not the worst of it. "There is fecal 

contamination on the handbags," says Amy. Leather or vinyl handbags 

tended to be cleaner than cloth handbags, and lifestyle seemed to play a 

role. People with kids tended to have dirtier handbags than those 

without, with one exception. 

The handbag of one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of 

the worst contaminations of all. "Some type of feces, or possibly vomit" 

says Amy. 

So the moral of this story - your handbag 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 handbag at home and in toilets, and don't put 

it on your desk, a restaurant table, or on your kitchen countertop. 

Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a 

pair of shoes. "If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your 

counter tops, that's the same thing you're doing when you put your 

handbag on the countertops" - your handbag has gone where individuals 

before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, emptied bowels, etc! 

Do you really want to bring that home with you? 

The microbiologists at Nelson also said cleaning a handbag will 

help. Wash cloth handbags and use leather cleaner to clean the bottom 

of leather handbags. 

conclusion: scaryyyy

x

b