As a professional cosmetologist, you pride yourself on staying on the cutting edge of style. In fact, you might just be the initiator of style. Your job is to make your clients look spectacular, and you do it with panache. From consultation to application, there are few occupations that require you to be quite so ‘hands on’ with clients.
And it is that hands on approach that can expose you and your clients to potential infections, resulting in not only largely preventable pain and suffering, but potentially lost productivity and the income that goes along with it. Fortunately, you can avoid a lot of those consequences by taking proper preventative measures.
Your first line of defense is your powers of observation. For example, if your client has an open wound, cut, blisters or obvious rash or skin infection, you might decline to work on them until the condition is healed. This is for your client’s protection as well as your own. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends avoiding all contact with your client’s blood or bodily fluids, and Texas state law, you are prohibited from performing services on a client if you have reason to believe that person has “…a contagious condition such as head lice, nits, ringworm, conjunctivitis; or inflamed, infected, broken, raised or swollen skin or nail tissue; or an open wound or sore in the area to be serviced.”
As simple as it seems, washing your hands with soap and water before and after working with each client will go a long way toward preventing the spread of germs and infections. In the personal appearance industry, if your client doesn’t look good, you don’t look good. And nothing looks as good as good health!
For more tips on proper preventative measure you can take in your salon, check out https://www.cosmetologyeduclasses.com/. Whether you need continuing education hours to meet state requirements, or if you just want to improve your knowledge of the cosmetology industry, it’s a great place to start.