Peek inside Oprah’s purse and you’ll find her BlackBerry, a makeup bag given to her by interior designer Nate Berkus, contact lens cleaning fluid, sunglasses (in black and brown), reading glasses, $14 cash in her Louis Vuitton wallet, toys for Sophie (her dog), a copy of Maya Angelou’s poem “Amazing Peace,” and a few crumbs from a nutrition bar.

The talk show queen opened her purse once on her show, at the request of a viewer. If you watched that episode, you didn’t see the one thing Oprah really should carry in her purse: one of Alexis Meisel’s purse hangers.

The handy devices allow purse-carriers to hang their purses – from a table in a restaurant or a door in a restroom stall. No more setting purses on the yucky floor for lurking germs or draping them over the back of a chair for lurking thieves.

Meisel, a self-described mild germophobe, knows what Oprah should know – the bottom of a woman’s purse ranks No. 7 on the list of the germiest places in everyday life, according to a Health magazine report aired on NBC’s “Today Show.”

I met Meisel last month in Tacoma at a seminar for entrepreneurs. She drove down from Newcastle with a purse full of her Zook Hook purse hangers. I bought one of Meisel’s hot holiday designs – a crystal martini glass with a swizzle stick. A present for my wife on her recent birthday.

She loved it.

Apparently, so do a lot of other folks. What started with three online sales totaling $60 in July 2007 has mushroomed to more than $5,000 last July – and a prediction from Meisel that she’ll top $150,000 in sales by the end of the year.

Not bad for a former schoolteacher and economic researcher with a master’s degree in marketing and a germ of an idea – but no previous experience running a retail business.

She has, however, seen the inside of a lot of stores. Before Zook Hooks’ launch, Meisel’s most recent job involved roaming through Puget Sound-area grocery and department stores researching monthly price changes. Her research went to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which factored it into its reports of changes to the Consumer Price Index.

Now, Meisel has set herself an audacious goal akin to one Microscoft co-founder Bill Gates set years ago when personal computers hit the market. Gates envisioned a computer on every desk and in every home.

“My ultimate conquer-the-world goal would be that every woman would have a Zook Hook to match each purse,” Meisel said.

Her first step toward world domination of the purse hanger market started in early 2006 on a casual trip to a Tukwila gift shop.

“I love gadgets, and I saw this (purse hanger). Just a little cheap one at a gift store. I thought what a great idea.” She bought it for herself.

During her years teaching school in California, Meisel had become a hand sanitizer addict to avoid catching the sick bugs brought into her classroom by students. At restaurants, she held her purse in her lap, partly to avoid the germy floor and partly because a year in crime-sensitive New York City taught her not hang it on the back of the chair.

“I’m kind of neurotic with cause,” she said.

While her purse dangled from tables with the gift shop hook, Meisel became a minicelebrity in public. Strangers often asked about the hanger and commented on its stylish functionality.

Nearly a year later, Meisel went back to the gift shop to buy another as a gift. The shop no longer carried them, and Meisel couldn’t find them at other shops.

So she and Google became fast friends as she started searching online for manufacturers in China that could produce purse hangers to her design specifications. Today, she has arrangements with multiple Chinese manufacturers producing her 45 different purse hangers, 10 different key hooks, and five gift sets.

“It was a big leap of faith for me to send that first check to an overseas bank account,” Meisel said. “But it’s worked out very well.”

The only thing that could make it better right now is if Oprah decided to carry one in her purse.

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com">dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com

The Zook Hooks File

What: Line of 45 purse hangers, 10 key hooks and five gift sets

Owner: Alexis Meisel

Top sellers

1. Bling purse hangers ($12.99) in an assortment of colors

2. Tree purse hanger ($6.99)

3. Black and Silver Starburst ($6.99)

4. Clear Crystal purse hanger ($17.99)

5. Funky Butterfly purse hanger ($10.99)

Incorporated: April 2007

Annual sales: $150,000 (2008 estimate)

Notable: 10 percent of net profits donated to animal rescue organizations

Online: www.zookhooks.com