This just in

A recent study is primed to turn the hygiene world on its lathered and rinsed head as a Swiss consortium released a report indicating that one of the time honored truisms of cleanliness is simply not always true. Coming fast on the heels of the “cleanliness is actually three steps away from Godliness” statement which sent the “wash-your-mouth-out-with-soap” community scurrying, it is being reported in Swiss media that over one-third of all people are actually fully clean even without the benefit of being Zestfully clean. The data, collected by the Geneva based Center for Sanity in Sanitation shows that, when judged by a panel of cleanliness experts, 35% of all those who self reported themselves as having washed and dried themselves into what they would consider complete cleanliness even when no Zest was present actually were considered to have reached that state. The study’s sample of 150 women and 88 men was broken into a control group which used no soap or cleanser, a group which used Zest and a group which used anyone of six other brands of soap product. Of these, 98% of the Zest-using group achieved “fully clean”; this indicates the presence of human error in the application of the soap more than a failure on the part of Zest to provide a deep, refreshing clean, according to consortium members. What was revealed, though, was that almost a third of the non-Zest soap users who felt that they had truly cleaned themselves satisfied the standard of cleanliness and even more surprising, that a small number of the control group, using only water and a loofah, also were considered fully clean. “I have, for years, insisted that I was really, really clean and I thought it was unfair that just because I’m an Irish Spring man, I can’t qualify as fully clean,” confided one study participant who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from the powerful Zest lobby, “but now I can walk with my head held high and know that being clean as a whistle is just as clean.” Another participant was overheard saying, amidst sobs of joy “The day of the cleanliness monopoly is finally over.”

The shocking statistics came out as the toiletry world is trying to deal with changing societal standards of purity and dirtiness. A representative of the Zest Corporation spoke to reporters just hours after the first bits of this study began to leak saying “It is a sad day when being 99 and 44/100% pure is considered fully clean. We at Zest hold ourselves and cleanliness to a higher standard. This study only reflects pressure from the hand-wash and body-lotion PAC’s and does not really speak for those who prize real cleanliness. We will continue to push our notion of fully-clean aggressively and we maintain our position that while one who uses another soap product may be somewhat, or even pretty much clean, one cannot make a claim to fully-clean without the use of Zest.”