I
went to the dentist the other day, and as I was leaving, Sarah, my hygienist, gave me the obligatory sample bag, filled with floss, a tube of toothpaste, and a new toothbrush. “Great,” I said. “My old brush is looking pretty worn out.”
Sarah
asked me how often I replace my toothbrush. “Whenever you give me a new one,” I
said. “So about every six months.”
She
wrinkled her nose. “That’s way too long to use one toothbrush, Diane,” she
said. “You should be replacing them about every three months. Think about how
much bacteria is hanging out in those wet bristles.”
I
promised her that I’d start buying my own toothbrushes—instead of relying only
on the freebies she hands out—and then I started wondering if I was keeping
other bacteria breeding-grounds around too long. So I did a little digging, and
here’s what I came up with:
Pillow. Your soft, comfy pillows
get heavier as they age. That’s because they’re accumulating dead skin and dust
mite feces. Eww! Get a new one every 3 or 4 years.
Loofah. It gets wet every day, and
it lives in a damp environment—the perfect breeding ground for bacteria.
Replace it every 3 weeks.
Contact case. Pitch it every 3 months, or
every time you open a new bottle of saline solution. You don’t want anything
nasty to get in your eye.
Kitchen sponge. Toss it in the dishwasher
every time you run it, and replace it once a month.
Makeup. Each product has a
different rule of thumb. Click here for specifics.
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