Touching Light Bulbs

[Keemo]

Does anyone know if touching a bulb while installing is really that bad for it?

The reason I ask is I installed some HID match fogs and it was so fricken hard to get in there, I'm pretty sure I ended up touching the passenger side one, and maybe scratched it a bit on the housing. But once I got it in I didn't want to bring it back out to clean with Alcohol etc.

 

[turbocad6]

touching it on the side of the opening & even scratching it against it shouldn't make too much difference really, but touching it with your fingers or anything with any kind of oily residue (like fingers have) will cause the bulb to blow prematurley.. sometimes within minutes... if you think it's been touched then you sould wipe it off with alcohaol or something that will evaporate & leave no oily residue