Shoppers beware: there’s fungus amongst us.
They are saying when you lie down with dogs, you’ll stand up with fleas. And now, a retail employee warns that when you try on unwashed clothes, you’re in danger for contracting this icky skin disease.
“Once you buy latest clothes, please wash them,” begged content creator May Ricketts, in a viral video. “I do know [that when] you purchase something latest, you simply need to wear it — but I got ringworm for working within the fitting room of an enormous clothes retailer.”
Now that’s enough to make your skin crawl — quite literally.
Ringworm is an itchy, scaly and highly contagious fungal infection attributable to mold-like parasites that live to tell the tale the cells within the outer layer of the skin, per the Mayo Clinic.
Luckily for the unluckily afflicted, there’s no actual “worm” that burrows into the body and wreaks havoc. As a substitute, the reddish rash gets its name from the raised, circular shape it tends to form on the diseased area.
It’s an unsightly little bug that’s oft-transmitted via skin-to-skin contact, including sex, in addition to contact with animals, dirt (even dirty makeup brushes) — and, yes, fashionable finery.
“[Ringworm] can spread through clothing, towels, and bedding that [has] not been disinfected after use by someone with [ringworm],” advised the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in a report, which noted that latest strains of the fungus have emerged in recent times.
It’s a cringeworthy, common condition that Ricketts hopes to assist her over 300,000 TikTok viewers avoid.
“It’s grim on the market,” said the UK-based whistleblower. “People try on clothes [at a store], they bring about them back and sometimes they reek … or they’re carrying contaminants like ringworm.”
“All I did was handle the garments — I didn’t even put them on,” she barked. “And I got ringworm from touching them.”
Ricketts added, “You see the garments on a hanger and think, ‘Oh, it’s clean.’ Unsuitable!
“Likelihood are,” she continued, “everyone and their mother had tried it on.”
“All it takes is one dirty person with ringworm to have tried it on,” said Ricketts.
“And BANG! Now you’re a victim.”
