The whiter the hands, the dirtier they are, experiment reveals

Are your hands clean? Sure, you washed them after you went to the loo, but as the experiment here reveals, you probably didn't clean them anywhere near as well as you thought.

And proper hand washing is important - our hands can harbor a nasty colony of illness-inducing bugs including E.coli, salmonella, clostridium difficile, campylobacter, the superbug MRSA (which is resistant to certain antibiotics), as well as cold and flu viruses and norovirus, the winter vomiting bug, reports the Daily Mail.

But what constitutes proper hand washing, and are you doing enough to protect yourself?
To find out I used a special UV camera to test different hand-washing techniques - from the typical 'rinse and shake' to the 30 seconds recommended by a leading authority on disease control.

First, I rub on a gel known as Glo Germ, which simulates how bacteria cling to your skin. The gel, which is clear but 'glows' under UV light, is used as a visual aid in hygiene training - it's been used for training nurses who are going to be working with ebola patients, for example.

The gel contains particles the same size as bacteria, so any that's left behind (ie, that shows up white in the UV light) gives you an immediate idea of how good your hand-washing technique is. In other words, the whiter the hands in these pictures, the dirtier they are - and the darker they are, the cleaner.

The results may make you think twice next time you're at the bathroom sink...