Why you should never use the hair dryer in a hotel room
You don't know where it's been
You don't know where it's been
You don't know where it's been
Hotels may feel like the lap of luxury when you're in them, but have you ever thought about how many people have been there before you and what that might mean in terms of hygiene?
An investigation by and microbiologist Chuck Gerba in 2017 found certain areas and items in hotel rooms are likely to be more germ-ridden than others. One such germ-riddled object in particular might surprise you.
While the toilet is likely to have a similar germ count to yours at home, it is in fact the hair dryer that you may want to avoid.
"There must be some things you can do with a hair dryer that I am not aware of because some of them were pretty germy," Gerba said.
Unlike common bathroom fixtures such as sinks, toilets and showers, the hair dryer is overlooked when it comes to cleaning. The same goes for hotel menus and ice buckets, which also tested surprisingly high in bacteria at some hotels. An ice bucket at a three-star Beverly Hills hotel had five times the amount of bacteria the microbiologist considered acceptable. The experiment also uncovered a lot of bacteria on room-service menus.
The study looked at hotel rooms priced between $100 and $500 for a nightly stay.
"The biggest concern in a hotel room is picking up cold, flu virus or viruses that cause diarrhea," Gerba said. "It doesn't take very many to make you ill."