BEAUTY NEEDS CLEANING

Styling, hair cutting, colouring, manicure, pedicure, etc. We visit beauty salons in pursuit of our own perfection, but being in them, we run the serious risk of losing our health. While many of us realize that most of the beauty salons do not meet elementary health requirements, we have to play by the rules of the beauty industry and come to any significant event at least neatly coiffed, in other words, with styled hair.

Why is it so difficult? 

Azerbaijani beauty salons have grown out of the services sector, not medicine. This was customary in the Soviet Union. Consequently, this situation is observed in all post-Soviet countries. This "domestic attitude" still causes this sector to ignore health risks to clients who come for beauty and joy. You can be assured that all of the equipment used in the salon was disinfected and sterilized. But in fact, instead of fully disinfecting the instruments, some of them simply wipe nail scissors with cotton and alcohol and gently shake the comb from the dandruff of the previous customer. And ... back in the business.

Yes, it is hard to believe that you can even pick up AIDS in a beauty salon, but it is true, including a variety of other viruses and staphylococci. Fungus, lice and other diseases are not fatal, but this does make things easier. Bacteria and viruses can be transmitted through cutting tools such as pliers, scissors, needles for tattoos and piercings. One drop of blood left on the tip of the needle or nail scissors is enough for infection to be transmitted from one person to another, if the previous client was ill or was a carrier of a disease. And in order to eliminate this sanitary illiteracy, a lot of time must pass. But it's not just ignorance. The thing is that many of the leaders of beauty salons take the issue lightly and economize on disinfection and sterilization. Why is this happening? One representative of the business told R+ that compliance with all standards of sterilization and disinfection is too expensive, and for the beauty salon it is a lot of expenses and losses.

What it should be like

"We need to buy special equipment - devices, germicidal lamps and consumables: disinfectants and other very expensive fluids with unpleasant odours. In addition, compliance with health standards in salons requires a lot of effort and time, for example, to maintain records, understand the concentration of disinfectant solutions, put stickers on trays with the date when the solution was replaced and follow the deadlines. Plus, disinfectants themselves have expiry dates. If you miss them, you will have to throw them away and buy new ones. But the costs do not end here. It is even more expensive to buy several sets of tools for masters. Indeed, while the barber is cutting your hair or the master is doing the manicure, not just one, but two sets must be sterilized, and it takes a lot of time. As for the tools: good ones are very expensive, and heating them for sterilization leads to increased wear. Scissors 'become blunt', and each sharpening of professional tools costs 10 manats and more."

Many managers of beauty salons place responsibility for compliance with health standards on the shoulders of the masters themselves: "Keep your tools clean yourselves." It turns out that hairdressers and other staff are forced not only to pay a monthly fee to the salon manager, but also spend money on means of sterilization and disinfection. It is clear that masters cannot afford expensive tools and equipment.

According to the representative of the salon business, managers should completely redefine the concept of sanitation requirements. For example, all salons should have a separate room for disinfection and other sanitary measures. The administration of salons should include this issue in its costs. "By the way, it is not difficult at all to teach all the subtleties of this work to someone from the staff, pay them extra money for that and develop internal rules that clearly note the inadmissibility of unsanitary conditions, the system of internal penalties and fines. After all, failure to comply with rules of sanitation threatens the salon with serious measures - from fines to suspension of operations and closure. Of course, if relevant agencies are strictly overseeing it."

As for what the algorithm of handling tools and equipment should be, we should bring it to the attention of those who love visiting beauty salons that clamps, rollers, caps and nets for chemical hair setting should be washed with soapy water. Combs, brushes and scissors for cutting hair should also be treated with soap and water and handled in a closet under the influence of ultraviolet rays for several hours. Cosmetic tools (sponges, brushes) are washed with soapy water and processed in a closet. Electrodes for physical therapy equipment and instruments are treated with alcohol. Tools used for manipulation, which may damage the skin (manicure, pedicure, facial cleansing and other beauty services) are subjected to disinfection, pre-sterilization cleaning and sterilization after each client, i.e. soaked, washed under running water and sterilized. But it is best to buy disposable instruments, though their quality is not as good as that of reusable ones.

By the way, the representative of the salon business advises each customer to demand that the master open the set of tools he will use in front of him. The customer must also pay attention to what clothes and tissues are used in the salon - surely they should be disposable. After all, you need to evaluate the salon not by its European style and curtains, but by sterile instruments and disinfection and the precautions taken by the staff to prevent visitors from sharing diseases through the instruments and consumables without knowing it.

Fines and penalties 

The head of the sanitation department of the Republican Centre for Hygiene and Epidemiology, Ziyaddin Kazimov, told R+ that city beauty salons and barber shops are regularly monitored. Their results reveal a number of irregularities. "For example, often there are young students standing next to skilled masters working on the client. No one checks whether they have passed an elementary physical examination," Kazimov commented. The main problem in the salons, he said, is the failure to comply with hygiene, because of which infectious diseases such as hepatitis, AIDS, various skin diseases, as well as pediculosis (in other words, lice) are still transmitted. This requires the use of special permanent sterilizing agents. Despite the fact that many salons have the necessary means of disinfection, often young employees and students do not even know how to use them, exposing not only customers, but also themselves to the risk of contracting disease-causing microorganisms. Accor-ding to Ziyaddin Kazimov, most of the equipment, especially from soft materials, should be disposable. For disinfection the salon should have Gigasept (lezitol), and after each client all tools must be treated with a liquid called akfoset.

As the number of salons is very large, it is very difficult to carry out monthly monitoring in them. But, nevertheless, some of "the worst offenders" of the rules of hygiene have been revealed, and eight of them have already been closed. Violators are subject to penalties and fines. 

Experience shows that, economizing on costs for sanitary maintenance, you can survive for a while without any problems, but in the long-run you will still lose without sanitation. Clients will stop visiting violator salons.