SAN ANTONIO — The pandemic is forcing nail salons to polish up their safety guidelines so that they're able to reopen. One group of salons is taking extra steps to keep customers and employees safe from the coronavirus.
In early June, the Centers for Disease Control issued coronavirus guidance to nail salons including spacing out workstations, cleaning high-contact surfaces and providing handwashing stations for clients. For Frenchies Modern Nail Salons, that just wasn't enough.
"The majority of what we were doing when we got new COVID-19 rules was, of course, our social distancing and the wearing of our masks," said Parker Towery, a co-owner of the New Braunfels business. "Everything else we were already doing."
In a nail salon, ventilation is a big deal. At Frenchies, 30% of their space is devoted to their HVAC.
"We capture all the contaminants in the transfer, and there are filters, there are vents at every station and at pedicure or manicure stations as well," Towery said.
One nail salons, as well as folks at home, should be looking to avoid is the toxic trio of dibutyl phthalate, toluene, and formaldehyde, all of which are in nail polishes, hardeners and glues. Any of these can induce respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing, nasal congestion, throat irritation or shortness of breath when you breathe in the chemical fumes.
"Along with that, when we started talking with our nail specialists a lot of them had a contact dermatitis dealing with some of those toxic chemicals," Towery said.
What about those pedicure bowls? One extra safeguard is to jettison the jets, and turn them into a safer basin of water.
"After you go through your services on the pedicure, we are going to drain that bowl," Towery said. "We are going to scrub it down with soap and water. We are going to spray it down with a hospital-grade barbicide and then we are going to set the timer for 10 minutes."
Frenchies says the entire area a customer and employee uses will undergo the same 10-minute rule; just one of the steps they are taking to go beyond the required Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations.