Saturday night: You’re at a frat party. You just won three consecutive games of beer pong. You don’t think twice about drinking your cups, despite the fact that you’ve seen the ball land in other peoples’ used cups, roll along the basement floor, and watched the ball pass between thirty-something unwashed hands.

What gives?!?

Obviously, beer pong isn’t the most sanitary party game out there. But you have the “water cup,” right? That cup of tepid, dirty water is totes gonna disinfect that old, recycled ping pong ball (that was most likely found under someone’s bed 10 minutes before party time). Or not.

Some microbiology students at George Washington University decided to test exactly how detrimental to your health beer pong can be. If you like beer pong, you may want to skip this article.

After a somewhat mild night of beer pong, consisting of eight students and thirty beers, the budding scientists collected samples from each of the beer pong cups and the water cup. What’d they find? A haven for germs. Bacteria from the E. Coli, salmonella, and pneumonia families were present in every single test tube containing samples from the game. Oh, and that water cup that everyone used to clean the balls? That was the most infected, and housed the most bacteria growth over night.

This study centered on beer pong only, but what about other potentially sickening games? When’s the last time you did a kegstand, putting your mouth on the tap that’s been who-knows-where after a dozen other people slurped down a few seconds worth of brew? How about the time you stood in for flip cup, and rotated through other peoples’ cups round after round?

We put our mouths everywhere when there’s cheap beer involved (and some of us really put our mouths everywhere), but we’re super cautious about where we place our ASS when we’re in a public place? Just some food for thought.

Not that you have to quit beer pong — hell, no! To be just a tad cleaner, change out the water cups and beer pong balls throughout the night, and keep your own beer cup to drink out of after the ball hits (just dump the shot’s worth of beer into your own cup).

Alcohol is bad enough for your immune system; don’t give germs a better opportunity to take up residence in your body.

You’ve got your life.

Your social circle.

Your intellectual endeavors.

Your means of generating income.

So you’re busy.

And believe me, I’m a perfect example of a girl with naturally great skin who screws it all up on the grounds of being “busy”.

I pass out with my make up on, don’t stop to wash my hands after eating the most disgusting slice of pizza ever OR after manhandling the railings in the New York City subways all day long.

However, I have finally learned how to combat these horrible habits that seem to come along for the busy ride of life. It’s not exactly impossible, you just have to make certain things more accessible for you in order to attend to your basic beauty needs as frequently as you can.

So here are some tips:

1. Keep baby wipes in your purse and by your bed. This way, if you’re passing out somewhere other than your own bed, you can grab a wipe and get most of your make up off that way. And if they’re sitting right next to your bed when you’re shutting down your system…that will require a lot less effort than subjecting yourself to the bright lights of the bathroom.

2. Keep anti-bacterial soap/lotion in your purse. It’s much easier to give your hands a good rub down with this stuff after that slice of pizza or day spent slumming around the city than it is to waste your precious time trying to find a bathroom where you can wash your hands.

3. Keep a small container of baby powder in your purse. If you naturally have oily hair (or just don’t get a chance to wash your hair on a rushed morning), sprinkle some of this on your roots and rub it in. It absorbs the oil an resets your skank clock; buying you at least another 12 hours.

4. Keep a small mouth wash container with you. Lets face it….you go out and eat smelly food, spend the night in foreign apartments, and you don’t bring your tooth brush with you, etc. etc. etc. The least you can do for yourself (and those around you) is to wash the nasty out of your mouth with a swig of this stuff until you can get back to your own sink and tooth brush.

Staying fresh and clean is definitely not always easy when you’re always on the run. However, my own mistakes have finally taught me that preparation is everything. Having this kind of stuff around my purse has saved my ass from being mistaken for a homeless crack whore many a time and so I am passing the torch of knowledge down to you now.

Carry it carefully.