However, avoid drying your hands on your clothes. If your clothing is dirty, it could contaminate your hands and lessen the benefits of hand washing. Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission. Any use of this site constitutes your agreement to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy linked below. A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only.
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Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. Medical Myths Health. Are you washing and drying your hands wrong? Share using Email. By Claudia Hammond 22nd May Hot water or cold? Soap or handwash? Towels or hot air dryers?
The use of soap is particularly important for handwashing to be effective as research has shown that washing with soap significantly reduces the presence of microbes viruses and bacteria on hands. But one often overlooked part of handwashing is hand drying — which is also integral to effective hand hygiene. Hand drying not only removes moisture from the hands but it also involves friction, which further reduces the microbial load and the environmental transfer of microorganisms.
And the transmission of microbes is more likely to occur from wet skin than dry skin. And this is particularly the case in hospitals and doctors surgeries.
Our research review has examined the importance of hand drying and the implications of wet hands for patients and healthcare workers. Snelling and her team found that rubbing the hands together whilst using traditional hand dryers could counteract the reduction in bacterial numbers following handwashing. Furthermore, they found that the relative reduction in the number of bacteria was the same, regardless of the hand dryer used, when hands are kept still.
When hands are rubbed together during drying, bacteria that live within the skin can be brought to the surface and transferred to other surfaces, along with surface bacteria that were not removed by handwashing.
The researchers found the most effective way of keeping bacterial counts low, when drying hands, was using paper towels. Amongst the electric dryers, the model that rapidly stripped the moisture off the hands was best for reducing transfer of bacteria to other surfaces.
The researchers compared the efficacy of the Airblade dryer manufactured by Dyson Ltd. The hands of 14 volunteers were contaminated by handling meat and then washed in a standardized manner. The researchers report that after using the dryers, fingers were pressed onto foil and transfer of residual bacteria enumerated.
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