A microbiologist has revealed just how clean public hand dryers really are, with shocking results.

Tim Call has bad news for germaphobes drying their hands after a visit to the toilet.

The 32-year-old, who has previously hit the headlines for sharing disturbing details about filthy kitchen sinks, likes to test commonly used products and spaces for bacteria.

In his latest experiment, the Utah native, who has over 270,000 followers, tackles hand dryers in a TikTok clip that has over 40,000 views and likes.

Tim made the strange discovery by first popping a petri dish in a public bathroom for 10 minutes to see what the air contained – discovering five bacterial colonies.

He then conducted a second test, placing a petri dish underneath a hand dryer and activated the motion sensor for one air blow.

Suddenly, he discovered eight bacterial colonies, and after waving his hand to produce another air blow, there were 15.

Tim then gets a new dish, and waves his hand for 10 air blows – finding a whopping 20 bacterial colonies, as well as two large patches of fungus.

Horrified users have rushed to the comment section to share their thoughts on the step-by-step video.

Ana said: “I’m gonna stop leaving the house.”

Another worried person wrote: “As long as you wash your hands afterwards you should be ok…oh wait…”

Rose commented: “I just wish public toilets has LIDS.”

“So I'm going in with a hazmat suit on,” joked Min.

“I don't use those and don't allow my kids to use them either,” said one follower.

“I always told my mum it was better wiping [my hands] on my pants,” joked someone else.

“This is why I always use hand sanitiser after washing my hands in a public bathroom,” added Lee.

However, the results actually aren’t as bad as you might think.

“I performed this test because there are many that believe that hand dryers are a terrible way to dry your hands after washing them,” Tim told NeedToKnow.co.uk.

“I’m not sure if I truly believe that.

“My experiment showed a simple air test of the bathroom, and a test of air being blown onto a Petri dish with varying amounts of air blown.

“While the experiment shows that there is bacteria in the air, and that a small amount will blow onto your hands, I don’t believe this is from the hand dryer.

“I believe the hand dryer is simply pulling the air from the room and that air is already contaminated.

“In my opinion, you should be totally fine to use a hand dryer to dry your hands.”

Tim often shares videos to TikTok to educated others on just how dirty everyday items can be.

He added: “I make this content because I’ve always been curious about what was growing around me and I wanted to visually see it.

“The cleanest thing that I tested that surprised me was gas pumps at gas stations.

“I thought they would be filled with bacteria due to the amount of usage but was surprised to see there was very little growth – around five colonies grew.

“I hypothesise this is due to the gas fumes being antimicrobial.”

ENDS