Not only you, but all nail care technicians want to provide the best service and satisfy clients while keeping themselves safe. Being good at your work has no use if you forget about your own safety.
Yes, that’s right, as a nail technician, you must take care of yourself to minimize the chances of impacts and hazards. The most common issues to protect yourself from are allergies, infections, or even injuries that can happen while performing nail care.
So, if you’re new to the job and need to know how to keep yourself safe while doing nail art or care, stick to this discussion. We’ll show how do you protect yourself as a nail technician.
What Are The Health Risks Of Nail Technicians?
Most nail salon owners give most of their attention to the decoration, interior but forget about the health risk of nail technicians. Alongside decoration, nail salon owners also give their attention to arranging furniture like manicure chairs, tables, and manicure chairs for nail tech.
However, as a nail salon owner or technician, you must know that nail care and crafting nails are associated with several health risks. When performing nail art or related things, infections, injuries, and allergies can appear because of inadvertent.
Here we’ve included some health issues that can appear because of performing nail care without ensuring health safety. Have a look:
- Nail Fold Infection: During a manicure, you may have to perform clipping, nail filing, and cuticle cutting which can easily cause skin lesions in your clients. And skin lesions or cuts will lead to paronychia, which can easily affect you too.
- Follicular Infection: Follicular infection can be caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria, which is one kind of bacterial infection. Pedicure foot baths cause these infections, and these bacteria are usually found in water. And the bacteria can easily enter anyone’s body through a tiny skin wound.
- Asthma: Not only nail dust, but any type of dust can cause asthma issues. If you don’t wear a mask during nail care, you’ll inhale nail dust, which will influence your respiratory system and cause asthma.
- Contact Dermatitis: Several products like Acrylic nails, nail polish, and nail glue can easily cause allergic contact dermatitis. And contact dermatitis is harmful to both nail technicians and even clients. However, this allergic condition can be avoided by being aware of products and using alternatives.
- Plantar Warts: Plantar warts are one kind of skin condition that can develop because of nail salons’ warm and moist atmosphere. The warm, humid environment of the nail salon can shrink the skin by cutting.
- Cancer: Another major health condition can happen because of the UV lights of nail salons. UV light is one of the main components of a nail salon that helps to dry nails faster. And UV lights can cause or even develop tumors and even skin cancer.
How Do I Protect Myself As A Nail Technician?
As you can see, there are many health issues associated with nail technician-related activities. However, just because there are many health risks associated with nail care activity does not mean you will stop working as a nail technician.
If you work as a nail technician, you can take some necessary steps to protect yourself from all those health issues. Here we’ve included some reliable tips that you can follow to keep yourself safe. Have a look:
1. Wear a Mask
To avoid inhaling nail dust, you must use a high quality protective mask. You can use a regular three-layer medical mask or use any other type of protective mask. However, be sure to change the mask every two hours while performing nail care or nail art.
2. Wear Protective Glass or Safety Screen
The next thing you have to wear to protect yourself from nail dust is safety glasses or a safety screen. If you’re not comfortable with a safety screen, then it’s good to go with protective glasses.
Well, safety glasses are good enough to protect your eyes from nail dust. Wearing a safety glass will also let you get rid of eye irritation as well.
3. Use Gloves
Using gloves is crucial as a pair of gloves helps to prevent all types of bacteria and all kinds of infections. During clipping, nail filing, and cuticle cutting, your client’s bloodstream or other things can easily touch your skin and can cause several skin issues.
And wearing a pair of gloves can easily prevent all the risks of bacterial infections. Moreover, nail dust can also cause allergic issues if nail dust constantly gets in contact with your skin during skin care.
4. Wear a Specific Dress
You should never work with your regular outfit at a nail salon. You should always wear specific clothing which you’ll only wear in your nail salon. Wearing a specific dress is also a sign of professionalism as well.
5. Watch Your Shoes
Most nail technicians often forget about this thing which is shoes. You should never wear open-toe shoes and try to wear shoes with socks. However, if you prefer to wear heels, you should avoid them as they make you feel uncomfortable while moving rapidly.
6. Wear a Cap or Hat
You should wear a cap or hat to protect your hair from nail dust as they can cause hair damage. Another thing you can do is, during performing nail care, keep your hair back and tied up. However, wearing a hat is the best solution to protect your hair from nail dust.
7. Proper Ventilation System
Last but not least, you have to ensure a proper ventilation system to get rid of nail dust issues. On the other hand, the most effective solution would be using a dust collector or electric nail drills that come with a dust collector system.
Well, the dust collector is effective enough to remove nail dust while performing nail care.
Conclusion
Working as a nail technician is both creative and rewarding that will let you earn a decent living. But unfortunately, many health issues are associated with nail salon activities. If you are not careful at your nail care work, it can cause injury, infection, and even allergic issues.
However, as we’ve discussed how do I protect myself as a nail technician in detail, now you can now easily protect yourself. It’s not a tough task to keep yourself well protected while working in a nail salon and all you have to do is follow the steps we discussed above.
Leave a Reply