Cleanliness. Disinfection. Hygiene.

These things are at the top of my priorities, especially when it comes to providing beauty services to clients. Hygiene has to be the most important thing.

I use Barbicide. A hospital grade, beauty industry certified, disinfectant.

I keep all of my products and tools on a trolly with wheels to allow me to whizz from manicure desk to pedicure throne with all of my things, with ease. The Barbicide jar is usually on my trolly, not on my manicure desk, but this is something I have recently changed.

After every single use, I put my stainless steel cuticle tools and pedicure bits in a Barbicide glass jar which sit neatly in my trolly of products, files and other nail gadgets. It's mixed with water and looks a lovely blue colour, with a cotton pad at the bottom to stop the ends of the tools becoming blunt.

Barbicide comes in a concentrated form which is mixed with water. Beauty therapists use it, nail techs use it, hairdressers use it, barbers use it. It also comes in a spray form which is perfect for cleaning surfaces and anything else that doesn't fit into a jar (like a desktop or pedicure bowl).

Here is a video from the Barbicide Youtube channel if you want to see how we use it in the beauty/hair industry...

I use file and tool disinfection spray on my files after every manicure/pedicure service.

100/180 grit nail files are constantly renewed as these files become blunt very quickly when working with acrylic. Files and buffers for natural nails are renewed less often, simply because they are used less and last longer.

All files and buffers are sprayed after each use with disinfection spray or thrown away.

Some other sanitisation rituals during the day are...

Work surfaces are dusted, sprayed down and disinfected.
Fresh towels are used for every single pedi. Towels are no longer used during manicures.
Hand's and feet are checked for contraindications (conditions which a service can not be done. Eg, warts, varrucas)
Clients wash their hands before each service. I also use hand sanitiser on myself as well as on my clients hand's at the start of each service.
Sanitising foot spray is used before feet go into the foot bath

Then, the relaxing/fun bit can begin…