“I’ve stopped using them” – Viral TikTok Video Shows How “Germy” Hand Dryers Are

During our nightly scroll on Tiktok, we found this viral video quite unsettling, so we thought we would share it with you guys. 

PhoneSoap is a company that sells UV light sanitisers based in the US, and on TikTok, they have a series called “How germy is it?”.

In their most recent episode that has gone viral, they were wondering how germy hand dryers in public toilets are. (Spoiler alert: they were pretty germy.)

@phonesoap

How germy are hand air dryers…again?#PrimeDayDreamDeals #phonesoap

♬ original sound – PhoneSoap

In order to determine how germy hand dryers in public places are, they went to a couple of toilets in gas stations, cinemas and stores to collect samples from the hand dryers. He put a petri dish under the hand dryers to collect samples for the experiment.

He also had 1 control petri dish that he waved around to simulate the motions of drying your hand by waving it in the air. 

All of the Petri dishes were put into an incubator to grow the bacteria culture and they were taken out after 3 days. 

There was nothing on the control Petri dish that was “waved dry”. As for the other samples collected from the hand dryers, the growth grossed us out. 

The sample with the most growth was collected from the same place as the control petri dish. It is followed by the gas station hand dryer, the one at the cinema and the one at the store.

Petri dish that was waved around after 3 days in the incubator.

After comparing the control Petri dish and the other ones, the person says that it may be more hygienic to dry your hands by waving it around rather than using the hand dryer. 

Netizens in the comments have shared what they thought about hand dryers. 

A study done by researchers at the University of Connecticut and Quinnipiac University in 2018 shows that hand dryers blow bacteria in the bathroom air onto the hands of the users. 

Another newer study that compared high-speed dryers and paper towels found that the former leaves more contamination on a person’s hands and clothes. 

Well, with all these studies and the videos, we can safely say that we will not use any hand dryers in the future. But if you are in a situation where you need to do so, maybe sanitising your hands after can help!

Also read: “It’s deep-rooted”- M’sian Shocked To Find Out That Littering Is Common At A Village in Sabah