This is pretty gross.
I am actually amazed that I haven’t noticed this sooner. It’s also something that I am not necessarily proud to share, but I can only imagine the amount of unsuspecting loofah (bath sponge, body pouf, bath pouf, whatever you want to call it) users out there who are washing their bodies with loads of bacteria.
Do you own a loofah? If so, here is why it should end up in your garbage immediately.
We had two. We left them in the shower, like I imagine most people do. One would hang from the faucet, which has the baby’s spout cover over it. The other, which was rarely used, was wedged into a crevice of the handle that is built into the shower. I used the hanging one probably twice a week, but it would hang on an end of the faucet that faced into the shower.
Yesterday, I decided to remove the spout cover, to clean it, and was astonished by what I had discovered.
The side that the loofah had been resting against, the one that I couldn’t really see, had been gathering some sort of mold. I used this on my face regularly! This is not OK …
So I thought to myself, if this is how much bacteria and mold builds up in the loofah that I use, I can only imagine what the one we don’t use is filled with. I took it out of its little wedged spot.
Wonderful. That’s what we were bathing with. I know some of you are probably thinking, what in the world? How do these people not know that this is happening? Well, if you see the first picture, you can’t really tell that this is behind it. And we just recently decided to start using the loofahs. I would say they have both been in there for only a month. It never crossed my mind that they would be building up bacteria and mold in a place where we clean ourselves. It just water and soap that is ever in there. How could all this bad be happening unnoticed?
I did some research and found that there are many articles out there about how these are dangerous and do more harm than good. But when you are shopping at Target, there are no warning signs by the bath sponges. Obviously. That would be bad for sales.
The scariest part is if that is what is visible to the naked eye, I would hate to know what is deep down in these sponges that we can’t see. This stuff doesn’t just rinse off. You have to scrub it and clean it well. So just think about that the next time you use any sort of sponge to clean with. Not even a loofah, it could be a household one you use for dishes, or to clean the floors, or to clean your CHILDREN. There are tons of kids’ sponges on the market, my daughter has several bath sponges. Thankfully we have never used any of them.
Just because you use it to clean with, doesn’t actually mean that it is clean.
Unless you clean them with a detergent, and thoroughly dry them after each use, which I can’t imagine anyone having time to do, they aren’t safe.
Toss them!
