One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing a stylist drop a clip, comb, or towel on the floor and pick it up and continue using it on their client.
You must always properly disinfect all utensils you use on your clients.
Here are a few reminders about how to disinfect and sanitize.
1. Your tools, including shampoo bowl, and any other thing which comes in contact with your client must be disinfected and washed before use on each client.
2. All towels and linen must be kept in an enclosed cabinet. Your soiled capes and robes must be placed in an enclosed container to be washed.
On to methods of disinfection. There's three steps that MUST be completed in order for your tool to be properly disinfected.
1: Clean – You must first clean all of the hair out of your combs, brushes, and clips and wash them in hot water combined with a synthetic detergent to remove all traces oil.
If you're using clippers they must be sprayed with an EPA registered, hospital disinfectant formulated for electrical equipment.
2: Rinse – Rinse with water to get rid of all traces of your cleaning detergent from your combs, brushes, tools and instruments. You will not do this for clippers since it is an electrical appliance.
3: Immersion – After cleaning, and rinsing you want to immerse your tools and utensis in an effective germicidal solution like barbicide.
Once the combs are clean then need to be removed, dried, and stored in a clean covered container.
Although sanitation is extremely important it is often ignored or not followed to a “t”.
In my salon not only do we follow proper sanitation practices, but I have a weekly checklist that is to be completed at the end of the week.
This checklist consists of what I call a “deep cleaning”.
It's important to always be on top of things when it comes to this. You must always be prepared.
In fact, I got a surprised visit from State Board and he complimented me on how clean the salon was.
Never get caught off guard. Stay prepared!
Be blessed,
Marquetta Breslin
