Do you wash your hands very often?

I prefer to consider my hands to always be less than clean. In that way, I hope to keep them away from my face & avoid all those viruses as much as I am able.

Whenever I use the bathroom, or whenever I prepare food for someone other than myself. I don't really care if I prepare food for myself. Who am I to blame? Myself? Do that on other stuff everyday, so what's a little extra?

I'm pretty diligent about hand washing probably because I work with children. Hong Kong is also very dirty and I'm concerned about the amount of germs I pick up during the day. I even carry antibacterial hand-wash (no water needed) with me along with tissues. The public bathrooms here (when you can find one) are frightening.

I'm not at all compulsive about it but I don't like feeling sticky or sweaty. (For those of you who don't wash after using the restroom..I wonder how many food handlers are like you? YUCK!!)

I wash my hands...when they're dirty, before handling food destined for others (my SO excepted, we share our germs), after using the loo, more frequently (every time I pass a sink) when I'm sick. Today was a big hand-washing day, see car maintenance survey...

I work in a lab, and so I wash my hands VERY frequently. They crack a lot in the winter.

I've noticed that in Europe (or at least Scandinavia and England), people always wash their hands before a meal. And here, most people don't -- and use their hands to eat quite a bit! It's one of those little differences that isn't really important, but quite noticeable.

..only when I'm told ?? ... I know some of you are YOUNG , but THAT young? whew! I sometimes run my hands under warm water if they get cold (which happens at work if I'm doing a lot of keyboarding) ... otherwise, whenever they feel dirty (which is generally when they are dirty, sticky, muddy or covered in dry-eraser dust!)

After using the restroom and after doing something dirt-involving like changing the cat litter or working in the garden.

Sometimes I wear latex gloves all day and just wash off the sweaty powder chunks every once in while. Other days I don't, then I end up washing my hands every time I have to handle something I can't get paint on, and my the end of the day my hands are like hamburger.

***bill & lizzie: What I never understood about newspapers is why they're supposedly sterile. This is apparently true; it's why they used to wrap fish in it (maybe they still do). But the newsprint gets all over your hands (or your fish) and it's disgusting anyway. So what's the point of it being sterile? And why would it be sterile in the first place? It's always baffled me.

I wash my hands after reading the newspaper or handling newspaper...I hate the feel of newsprint on my fingers!! I also wash my hands after petting a cat or dog, because if I touch my face or eyes I'll start sneezing.

**ron2112: I had never heard that before. gross! I'd never buy fish wrapped in newspaper. ickola.

when they feel dirty, they get washed. they always feel dirty after giving a lecture (i hate chalk!).

I think hand-washing is overrated. I think germs are a natural part of the ecosystem, we live in a soup of them. Trying to kill them constantly is rather insane, and even dangerous (they become resistant to the chemicals we use, then later we CAN'T kill them when we really need to). I wash my hands when they are dirty. Oh, and I hardly ever get colds or whatever else you may want to attribute to bacteria. I do try to be more careful with washing when other people are affected by me.
**Lizzie, yes newsprint is the worst - I try to completely avoid touching newspapers.
**I used to work as a Sunday newspaper stuffer (we stuffed all those sections together - we usually did 800 or so each on a Saturday. Anyhoo... after the job was done, we'd blow our noses and, well... it wasn't pretty... black as midnight on a moonless night.

Define "Very often" or is the point of the survey to discover what other people think is "Very often"?

I have hand eczema, and washing them makes it worse, so I try to rinse 'em in the shower and then not otherwise unless preparing food for other people or something.

Bill: wow. that's pretty black