The professional beauty industry is an industry that thrives on social interaction, providing services, and of course, personal responsibility.
These aspects require service providers to be in close proximity to delicate areas, potentially hazardous conditions, as well as some diseases and disorders. Bearing that in mind, it is of paramount importance that skin care professionals use their personal protective equipment (PPEs), like gloves, as often as deemed necessary. Using this equipment properly, frequently, and at the appropriate time can mean all the difference in keeping not only them safe, but also their clients. It is always advisable to familiarize yourself and your staff with these guidelines regularly to maintain a safe work environment.
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GLOVE USAGE
Wearing gloves is one of the easiest and most effective ways to protect yourself in a service environment. According to medlineplus.gov, skin care professionals should wear gloves every time they come in contact with blood, bodily fluids like saliva, bodily tissues, mucous membranes, or broken skin. Some examples of these instances including injection, waxing, performing extractions with or without lancing, providing a chemical peel service or the handling of chemicals, facial and nail services, and other beauty or medical treatments. Also utilizing gloves to protect from infection aids in the reduction of communicable disease transmission from cross-contamination and client to client. More important than knowing when to wear gloves is understanding that it is a personal responsibility we must all take seriously and do our best to follow these important rules and regulations.
Although knowing when to wear gloves is a great way to keep yourself healthy and safe in a client care setting, knowing when it is okay not to wear them can be seen as even more important. Some skin care professionals prefer to wear gloves from the beginning of a treatment or service through to its completion. That is absolutely acceptable in terms of personal preference but isn’t always necessary. So when is it okay to take the gloves off? According to Stonybrook University, it’s advisable to not wear gloves “when touching common surfaces, such as telephones, computers, doorknobs, and elevator buttons, or that may be touched without gloves by others.” In essence, when setting up or breaking down a service area, gloves are not required to be worn, but also when touching frequented items or surfaces so as to prevent cross-contamination. Additionally, it is the preference of some professionals to cleanse the skin with cleansers or astringents, apply products to the skin, and remove product from the skin, without gloves. This preference is also agreeable so long as the potential for transmission is deemed negligible. A good rule of thumb is if you think you should be wearing gloves, put them on, and keep yourself continuously updated on new standards of personal protection.
WHEN TO CHANGE PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT
When choosing to use personal protective equipment during a treatment, be sure to make yourself aware of when you should change them, how often they should be changed, and why you should. The World Healṯh Organization provides very useful information on not only wearing gloves but guidelines that outline when they should be removed and changed in a helpful PDF. They recommend changing gloves when the integrity of a glove is compromised, visibly soiled with any kind of material, in which it should be changed as soon as possible and complemented with hand hygiene. They also recommend changing gloves when four hours has elapsed during treatment, when transitioning from client to client, as the same pair should not be used with different clients, and additionally during treatment if moving from a potentially contaminated body area to another body site (including a mucous membrane, non-intact skin, or a medical device within the same patient or the environment). It’s of course advisable to change gloves when you think you should for safety and sanitation purposes. Nitrile gloves are the recommended type for personal service workers and being cautious not to apply hand creams or lotions containing petroleum or alcohol-based gels immediately prior, as they can inhibit proper use of the gloves. So keeping in mind these instances, it is vital to understand for proper glove use but also to keep you and your space clean and your patrons safe.
The responsibility of caring for yourself and others is not one that most professionals take lightly. We do our best to keep ourselves clean and safe but also our clients. Adherence to personal protective equipment, hand hygiene, and sanitation guidelines is key to maintaining an aseptic treatment environment for all clients and staff. It is always suggested to familiarize yourself with information that pertains to utilizing gloves safely, effectively, and properly before applying them and using them in a service but also keeping yourself informed of widespread changes and updates to those recommendations. So, when in doubt, wear the gloves.
Resources
- Wearing gloves in the hospital: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2020, from https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000452.htm
- Environmental Health and Safety. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2020, from https://ehs.stonybrook.edu/programs/laboratory-safety/personal-protective-equipment/gloves.php
- fliphtml5.com. (n.d.). Glove Use Information Leaflet – World Health Organization. Retrieved March 16, 2020, from https://fliphtml5.com/bmca/abbl/basic
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Brittany Facio is a Phoenix-based educator-turned-business development manager, passionate about how proper aesthetics education and sophisticated protocol implementation can create business-changing revenue. As a business development manager, she is responsible for not only educating her clients on skin care products and protocols, both on an individual basis and in regional training seminars, but also for providing marketing, merchandising, and branding assistance to generate leads and capture a new audience. When she is not working, Facio can be found enjoying play time with her family and Havanese rescue, Spruce, trying a new dinner recipe, and binge-watching comedies on Netflix.
