When you hop in the shower for a nice relaxing bath, what do you usually take to clean yourself up? Most likely your loofah! Your trusty loofah is the easiest and most relaxing way to get clean… but how clean is the object that cleans you?
Turns out it’s probably not as clean as you’d hoped.
Your loofah is a breeding ground for bacteria and can harbor pathogens such as staphylococcus, stenotrophomonas maltophila and group B streptococcus. While these terms may sound like a lot of hooey, each has less fun consequences.
Staph causes acne, stenotrophomonas maltophila can cause respiratory infections, and group B streptococcus can cause pneumonia and bone and joint infections.
Isn’t that great?
Are those nasty bacteria already on your loofah? If not, how does your loofah become so… disgusting? Ironically, we’re the ones who make our loofahs so bacteria-infested.
These bacteria are already on your body or have been picked up from somewhere you’ve been. When we shower, we scrub what we’ve picked up off our loofah, which leaves us clean, but our loofahs are dirty. While this is unlikely to give you a life-threatening infection, it can infect others if you share your loofah or something else that has touched it, like your soap.
How do you know if your loofah is infected? It will start to smell like mold. When you notice this, you can do one of two things: throw it away or clean it!
It may seem hard to clean something that is normally supposed to clean, but there is a way to do it! And it’s not as hard as you might think.
The best method for cleaning your loofah is submerging it in a mixture that’s one part bleach and nine parts water for about ten minutes. When time is up, remove the loofah and let it air dry completely.
Too time consuming for ya? There’s always option A, tossing the loofah away.
If you do choose to dispose of your dirty loofah, opt for soap next time! With a bar of soap it’s much easier to keep bacteria off; all you have to do with soap is give it a good rinse with regular old water. If you’re adverse to using bleach or you’d like to avoid as much bacteria as possible, this is a much more sufficient option.
What do you think of this health information or this cleaning method?
Do you clean your loofah regularly or is this all news to you?
Share your thoughts in the comments section below and then get cleaning.
