Culture media that are nutritionally restricted and suboptimal growth temperatures often provide better recoveries of stressed microorganisms than nutrient-rich culture media and incubation at the optimal growth temperature for a particular microorganism. In addition, oxygen scaven- gers and/or reducing agents (catalase, glutathione and pyruvate) frequently are included in culture media to enhance the recovery of injured cells. Methods in Standard Methods for Examination of Water and Wastewater reflect this because it is noted that high nutrient agar (e.g., plate count agar; tryptone glucose yeast agar) gives lower counts than heterotrophic plate count media, such as R2A agar.5 Also, higher counts generally are obtained by incubating plates for 5 to 7 days at 25-28°C, not 35°C. The available data suggest that the Phoenix phenomenon and the VBNC state are two ways of describing the inability of recovery systems and procedures to detect viable microorganisms. It appears that the hoenix phenomenon observed in the cosmetic industry is an artifact caused by the inability of the culture conditions (diluent/culture media and incubation conditions) to recover injured microorganisms.' Now that we know this, precautions can be taken to help prevent the Phoenix phenomenon from being a problem with finished cosmetic and drug products, as discussed in the following paragraphs.