The Scientific Perspective of your Bathroom!

Hi Everyone,

Many of you know I am not your Mister Average; in fact, I am far from it. But anyway I want you to consider the following situations and take a good look at your bathroom and possibly see how clean it is, or is it?

Article Name: The Scientific Look at your Bathroom!

Firstly, do you have a bath or shower, or maybe both – and your wash basin and lastly your toilet. Remember if you’re a man, you have been told many times to always lift the seat up before relieving yourself. Then you always been told to either put the seat back down and cover, or just the seat.

Have you ever looked at your bathroom from a scientific point-of-view?

Let us look at your Bath or Shower, which do you use?

Let us look at the bath first, it looks all clean, white and shiny – so you start running yourself a bath, you may add some bubble bath, or bath salts. Anyway, let’s now skip to the end and you have just got out of the bath, do you actually feel clean now? You may think you are clean, but the water you have been bathing in, has all your dead skin, but there is also 100’s of kinds of bacteria thriving on any single part of your body. But did you know that by having a bath allows them to move from one area of your body to another! Creepy crawlies, well there are different types of bacteria that live on your body, in different places.

So is having a bath a good idea or bad?  I will leave this open for debate, bearing-in-mind we have only looked at bathing, nothing else.

Perhaps now you are thinking well if a bath is transferring bacteria from one area to another, then a shower will be more appropriate. So, you jump in the shower (remember the shower head harbours bacteria and lime scale can build up), so you might want to clean it first. Anyway, what can possibly be wrong with having a shower, all the water runs down your body, so you probably think now this is the cleanest option. You will never remove all bacteria off your body, that is a known fact. But what actually does happen while you’re having that nice shower?

Well, for a start you already have bacteria on your body, but bacteria also live on tiles and anywhere else in your shower area, if the shower hits the tiles then it causes a ‘plume’ effect – this then transfers bacteria from the tiles to your body, which you are trying to clean.

So, the Bath or the Shower? Which one do you choose?

If you are wondering well what I have, well I have a bath, and a shower – but I have to be supported by an electric bath seat. My wife has to watch me in the bath, because I suffer from Epilepsy and Functional Episodes – if the water is too hot or too cold it can cause a person with these conditions to have a seizure, and with a standard bath this could be fatal.

Anyway, let’s move on to the toilet. There are many stories regarding toilets and hygiene, I will mention a few but not go in to detail.

Many times you have been told to always shut the seat cover down – but not everyone does. Now I will tell you something that will think twice about putting the cover down. There is a very good reason why toilets have covers, and no it’s nothing to do with your décor of your bathroom, or having a nice cover that matches your décor.

Now, let’s say you have done your business regardless if it is a number 1 or a number 2. Now, with the seat cover not closed, and then you flush the toilet, what do you think is going to happen? You are probably thinking well I flushed the toilet and everything is clean, and then you go to the wash basin turn on the tap and wash your hands. Then dry them in a hand towel nearby. But, you have created a huge bacteria spreading area, the fact is the ‘plume’ created from a single flush of the toilet is high enough to reach your ceiling, and surround walls, the wash basin and even your towel, which is covered in faecal matter or urine. But, it does not stop there either – what about any tooth brushes you have, I bet they do not have the bristles covered over either! Now, you will be brushing your teeth with those toothbrushes.

After reading that you are probably considering making sure the toilet seat cover is shut down every time and you should be fine! Well, if you thought that you would be wrong. With the toilet seat cover down, and when the toilet is flushed the ‘plume’ cannot go up, which is a start, but the actual pressure of the ‘plume’ means in it will be forced out through the sides of the seat, this is not as bad, and is definitely better than having the cover upwards.

Now, for the science facts – a toilet ‘plume’ can have a radius of over 3 feet around it, before it starts dropping off in pressure. With the cover down, the area of the ‘plume’ radius is around 4 feet, but does not rise up which is the best idea. And now you know why toilet seat covers should be closed.

You may ask yourself is there anything as a clean bathroom, the scientific answer is simply ‘NO’, regardless of what cleaners you use.

Please note I have not mentioned the use of bleach in this article, that is because many people think bleach in the toilet is good, in fact you will be damaging your toilet, which is not a very good idea. Bleach after a time will wear away the enamel coating on your toilet, you can use anything other cleaner, but nothing with bleach in. Another tip is, do not stick numerous blue blocks in the cistern, this will normally cause the valve to stop working after a while.

And that is folks, how your bathroom looks from a scientific perspective – everything mentioned has been tested and proven, but not by myself. The original tests were done by well-known British scientists.

There is a way out, by having the toilet and bathroom as separate rooms, but perhaps not a good financial idea, in this day and age.

I have many articles I am writing up, this one was one I actually forgot about.

Regards,

Les.

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