Lesson 4 / 6

Nails: clean tools, careful gel

Nail tools touch skin, cuticles and sometimes blood. Some can be cleaned; some can only be thrown away.

• ✦Files, buffers and orangewood sticks can't be disinfected. Use them on one client, then throw them away — or give them to the client.
• ✦Metal tools (pushers, nippers, clippers): scrub off dirt with soap and water first, then soak or spray with a proper disinfectant for the time on its label. A UV box only stores tools; it doesn't clean them.
• ✦Any tool that touched blood: throw it away unless it can be heat-sterilised.
• ✦Gel and acrylic: keep the product off the skin around the nail. Uncured gel on skin can cause an allergy that can last for life. Cure with the lamp made for that gel, for the full time.
• ✦Don't work over a rash, cut or infection on the hands or nails.