6 Red Flags That Your Nail Salon Isn’t Hygienic Enough

 

1. First, do a visual cleanliness check.

Does the salon look spotless? It should! Clean surfaces are indicative of good hygiene practices overall. So no grime on countertops; not even the tiniest stray nail clipping should be visible. You can also check the dates on magazine stacks to see how often customer reading material gets tossed. Old magazines are a mecca for germs if lots of fingers are flipping through their pages.

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​2. Watch the technicians.

Are they dressed appropriately? You should question how hygienic and secure the tools and equipment are if your manicurist is dressed in a discoloured uniform or apron. This could be interpreted as a fairly strong indication that maintaining a professional appearance is not a top concern. Examine the storage tray; the instruments should appear clean. Do the technicians appear careless when it comes to correctly filing or cleaning a customer's nails, or are they highly focused on their work? An attentive technician is far less likely to perform unsanitary work or cut a client in the middle of a manicure.
 

3. Look out for safety signs.

Ideally, there should be posted safety rules regarding salon procedures that can be seen by the salon staff.

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4. Get the lowdown on those footbaths.

What type of foot baths are used? A lot of microorganisms are lingering within the jets of the whirlpool. Pipe-free whirlpools are better. You can sometimes see the difference between piped or pipe-free whirlpools yourself. 

 

5. Make sure tools are disposable—and disposed of.

In addition to the bubbly kind, there are non-whirlpool plastic foot basins that can easily be tossed between customers. Some salons still reuse things like metal files, so you want to request single-use files and buffers. It's totally OK to ask the technician to open a package in front of you to get your single-use tool out, too. Watch to make sure all disposable tools are thrown away immediately. (If they got tossed after they were used on you, chances are they got tossed after the person before you.)

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6. Ask about an autoclave.

When it comes to making sure non-disposable tools are safe, "disinfection and sterilization are not the same. An autoclave sterilization device, which is now available in better nail salons, is guaranteed to kill any bug and is much more effective than a disinfecting solution (like that blue stuff you might see at a hair salon or barbershop), which doesn't kill all bacterial spores.