Set Up Your Bathroom for Good Hygiene and Cleanliness

Bathrooms can be a breeding ground for germs, bacteria, mildew and all-around unsanitary conditions, but it doesn’t have to be that way. By establishing a few good bathroom practices and habits, you can turn your bathroom into a haven of health, hygiene, and cleanliness. Here’s how to get started:

1. Ban the clutter: Bathrooms have a tendency to collect an array of products, crowding the sink counters, toilet tank top, shower shelves, and bathtub edges and making it difficult to clean properly. Give your products a good going over and purge what is old, unused, or in the way. You will find that by utilizing some clever storage techniques both in and out of the bathroom, you can eliminate 99% of what is sitting on your horizontal spaces, allowing you to actually clean and disinfect your bathroom properly.
2. Hand-Washing Isn’t Just for Employees: You know all those signs you see in public bathrooms reminding workers to wash their hands thoroughly after using the restroom? This is sage advice to take into your home as well. If you took a culture of the average germs that hang out on home bathroom faucets and counters, you wouldn’t question the wisdom of a good 20-second hand-washing that includes under the nails, back of the hand and, ideally, up to the elbow. Trust us on this one.
3. Watch Those Chemicals: Germs aren’t the only health threat in the bathroom. Many of the chemicals in common bathroom cleaners are just as dangerous as the germs they are created to kill. Vinegar and water, mixed in equal parts, is one of the best cleaning solutions for your health and overall bathroom sanitation. Add some baking soda to a half-cup of vinegar, and you have an excellent scouring solution for toilets and sinks. And when you really feel the need to kill some germs, try a very weak solution of bleach and water, about one tablespoon to a gallon.  Be sure to wear gloves, a mask, and turn on the fan when cleaning with bleach.
4. Add Water to Your Wiping: Dry toilet paper wiping is neither the most sanitary nor the most effective option for wiping.  It’s also not the way of the world. Unlike the United States, where everyone assumes that dry paper is the only way to go, most cultures incorporate water in one way or another into their bathroom wiping habits. You can get so much fresher and cleaner if you add a toilet tissue mist like Aquinelle to your paper.  Just lightly spray your toilet tissue, and get a whole new kind of clean.
5. Stay Dry:  People don’t often think about it, but a wet bathroom is a favorite place for bacteria and mildew to grow. Turn on the fan to get moisture out of the air during a shower and after.  Make sure your counters, tub, shower, floor, and sink dry thoroughly after you finish in the bathroom , and close the lid before flushing, so that water doesn’t splash out of the bowl. Note: Don’t use the same towel to dry yourself and the bathroom. You are just moving germs around.
6. Don’t hang your towels on hooks: While hanging your moist bathroom towel on a hook after use is certainly a better alternative than throwing it on the floor, it’s not the best way to forestall bacteria and mildew growth. It’s all too easy for both to thrive in the folds of a wet towel. Wash towels often (after three uses max) and spread out to dry on a bar after each use, rather than hanging on a hook.
7. Leave the cell phone out of it: Cell phones can easily pick up bacteria and germs in the bathroom, so resist that temptation to text or return calls while on the bowl. You would be shocked to know the high proportion of cell phones that have tested positive for fecal matter—almost 20 percent. If you don’t take it with you and you wash your hands thoroughly, you avoid the whole problem of phone contamination.

Dermatologically-Tested and Kid-Safe Aquinelle Toilet Tissue Mist is available in six refreshing scents. To learn more about this ingenious bathroom wiping product, visit the Aquinelle web site.