Interesting behavior from someone with your username.
I use toilet paper when I wipe my bum after I poop.
Well, la-di-dah! Aren’t you special?
If I wash them too much, they get dry and cracked, which is much less healthy for you, I’m sure, than a few cooties from touching a door. While lotion helps, it’s not handy to have on your hands because it then gets on things.
I do wash my hands a lot when I’m cooking; no foot contamination in my kitchen!
We’ve got horrid soap at work; I think it’s paint-stripper rather than soap because my hands dry out within a very short time after I use it. Awful stuff.
I’m more or less the same way. Wash hands after bathroom, after handling things that are potentially hazardous, after handling things that leave weird residues on my hands, and when my hands don’t “feel clean.” (Not feeling clean means they’re sticky or oily or some other unpleasant feeling.)
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned already … when I wash my hands (such as before or after eating, bathroom, etc.) I make sure that I get a lot of soap and suds worked into my hand. Then a good rinse. A lot of people just put a little bit of water on their hands, wring them dry, and that’s it. Better than nothing, but not good enough. Gotta use soap and scrub in the suds.
My skin gets dry and cracked from the soap at my work as well. It’s almost as bad as if I were washing my hands with dishwashing soap, so I end up having to use really intense moisturizers on my hands. (Workplace is set to 76 degrees Fahrenheit, so I drink a lot of water, which leads to above average bathroom visits, which means lots of handwashing.)
I forgot to mention in my last post (before time ran out to edit) that I wash my hands before and during cooking, depending upon what’s being handled.
What you’ve described that “a lot of people” do is what I call “pretending to wash one’s hands.” I think my thoroughness with handwashing is what makes my hands so dry if I don’t use moisturizing hand soap.
Sticky biological material gets washed off fairly quick (immediately after touching raw meat, for instance), but your basic chemicals don’t bother me much.
Stinky and sticky are bad, but gunpowder residue encrusted hands won’t stand between me and a sandwich, battery acid gets a special trip to wash up if possible (because it burns) but a little grease or oil doesn’t bother me.
If it’s convenient I’ll wash.
You said foot contamination! Snerk!
Try this: Next time you do wash your hands, just get them wet first and add some soap. Rub your hands together as you normally would and then gently wring the liquid off your hands into your basin. I think you’d be surprised how dirty looking that liquid is. Especially if you’ve been riding the bus or have just been shopping or maybe even if you’ve just been futzing around your house for a while.
I think the first time I did that, it sparked my awareness of how dirty our hands actually get in the course of a few hours, thus making me into somewhat of a germophobe. They may not look or feel dirty and we may not remember touching anything gross, but chances are good there’s a minute layer of ick on them.
Also, I watch what kind of soap I use at home. I like the liquid types but Soft Soap is too harsh, as is Dial, but some of the store brands I can use often without drying and cracking my skin. I put hand lotion on every night at bedtime, which seems to help too. At work, you’re sort of S.O.L. if they have paint-stripper soap, unless you bring your own.
And? If this “minute layer of ick” isn’t fussed over on a regular basis and one doesn’t get sick from it, what’s icky about it? Life’s too short, man…
Do any of you pseudo-germaphobes carry around any of those alcohol-containing gel rubs? I ask because we trialled those at work, the porters, nurses and doctors had them but it was discontinued and instead they just put up more hygiene stations (with soap, alcohol rub and moisturiser bottles).
I have to admit that even though I studied microbiology, and I self-catheterise (through an opening in my abdomen) I don’t take any special precautions. Infact, contrary to all advice, I don’t wash my hands before I catheterise, and I rarely get UT infections (I actually had many, many more UTIs before I got my mitrofanoff appendicovesicostomy). Infact, I would hypothesise that the major risk of me picking up a bug comes after I catheterise whilst I’m rinsing the catheter because I have to touch the taps in the gents. The catheter then goes in a ziploc bag in my back pocket, which is probably an ideal breeding ground it being nice and moist and warm.
I wash my hands after using the bathroom and before handing food that I’m cooking, and quite often during the cooking process. I wash up if I’ve been outside playing with rocks and dirt and plants (er…gardening). There’s actual dirt, then. I wash my hands if they feel sticky or MOIST (see other thread) and after eating something that’s gotten on my hands.
I have a packet of baby wipes in the car (VERY handy*) because I tend to bugger off in my car and eat lunch there to get away from the office. (The lunch room is also the filing/copier room, and people just come and ask you work questions during lunch, so I like to get right out of the office for a breather.) I also smoke (yes, I am ashamed) and will use the baby wipes after smoking if I’m in the car at lunch, to reduce the cigarette odour that’s going to be evident on my hand. I’m not paranoid or overly fastidious about handwashing, just probably average.
We do have a lady in another office that shares our washroom whom I’ve dubbed Germ-Free Jenny who washes both before using the loo and after to a remarkable extent (and leaves water all over the damned counter while she’s at it) and then uses paper towels to open the door. And then there are those who don’t wash at all in the ladies’ room. I’m smack dab in the middle of the pack.
I also try and put on hand lotion before bed, but not so much these days as our little dog just tries to lick it off now.
*Also carry the previous year’s phone book in the car. It’s not that outdated, and there’s a lot of information in it.
Hi, DTC:
One of the things I’ve always had trouble explaining is that I’m not a germaphobe. I love bacteria. I know all the things they do that are good for us. We, and the world, are covered with innumerable amounts of bacteria. I even wash my dishes with a dish sponge…and don’t change it more than once every two weeks.
What bothers me are not bacteria. What I don’t like is the “ick” factor. It’s grime. Dirt isn’t even the word…it’s a layer of, well…invisible, and, probably quite often, imaginary layers of ooze and filth and greasy/wet/sticky substances.
And my list of what is acceptable is updated annually, and is usually arbitrary. The list is a study in irrationality.
Why can it go into my mouth but not on my hands? It’s not the food (although I won’t eat it if it sits out uncovered for more than 10 minutes). The issue is I don’t want greasy residue on my hands. After I eat, I will touch many things, and I don’t want to transfer the slime to every surface where I place my fingers. It all multiplies like some viral infection, and the carrier of this disease is my hands.
Now…who wants to play cards?