Why you should never use the hairdryer in your hotel room

We’ve all dug a hairdryer out of a rather-dusty-looking corner of a hotel room before.

After all, it’s much easier than lugging your own with you throughout your travels.

But perhaps that method is best after all as due to matters of hygiene, you really shouldn’t be touching that provided hairdryer with a barge pole.

An experiment conducted by ABC News has revealed that some areas of hotel rooms are more germ-ridden than others.

Microbiologist Chuck Gerba conducted germ tests in hotel rooms that cost anything from $98 (£75) to $500 ($380) per night – so we’re not talking about shabby £10-a-night backpacker hostels here – swabbing the same eight items in each.

While obvious germ-magnets such as toilets didn’t actually turn out to to be any dirtier than those in our own homes, the same couldn’t be said for hairdryers.

“There must be some things you can do with a hair dryer that I am not aware of because some of them were pretty germy,” Gerba said.

Another item to look out for is hotel menus.

While at most of the hotels menus were pretty clean, one hotel – and a five-star one at that – had high levels of bacteria on its pages.

The occasional ice bucket also performed badly – one three-star hotel had five times the amount of germs Gerba thought to be acceptable in it and, funnily enough, the less-expensive hotels had lower germ levels.

So use your en-suite bathroom to your heart’s content – but perhaps let your hair air dry this time.

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