Shoppers beware: there’s fungus among us.
They say if you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas. And now, a retail worker warns that if you try on unwashed clothes, you’re at risk for contracting this icky skin disease.
“When you buy new clothes, please wash them,” begged content creator May Ricketts, in a viral video. “I know [that when] you buy something new, you just want to wear it — but I got ringworm for working in the fitting room of a big clothes retailer.”
Now that’s enough to make your skin crawl — quite literally.
Ringworm is an itchy, scaly and highly contagious fungal infection caused by mold-like parasites that live on the cells in 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. Instead, 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, as well as 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 new strains of the fungus have emerged in recent years.
It’s a cringeworthy, common condition that Ricketts hopes to help her over 300,000 TikTok viewers avoid.
“It’s grim out there,” said the UK-based whistleblower. “People try on clothes [at a store], they bring them back and sometimes they reek … or they’re carrying contaminants like ringworm.”
“All I did was handle the clothes — I didn’t even put them on,” she barked. “And I got ringworm from touching them.”
Ricketts added, “You see the clothes on a hanger and think, ‘Oh, it’s clean.’ Wrong!
“Chance 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.”
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