Dangers in Nail Salons

For the first time in a year and a half I got my nails done. I took a break from this luxury because literally for ten years straight, every two weeks I was a faithful customer. I think nails are a clean look for the hands and designs are a way to express personality.

I did my own nails for the past year, experimenting with different OPI colors and changing them up every couple of days. Time consuming yes, but I saved tons of money by simply pampering myself from home. The other day I finally broke down and decided it was time to go back into the salon. I made this decision after being fed up with my polish chipping because let's face it when your polish start to chip it looks tacky. I discovered that I have a very oily nail bed so no matter what brand or how expensive my polish is, in a few days it was bound to chip. Its nothing like having on a banging outfit with some chipped up nails. YUK!! You know people make assumptions about you based on your hands and nails???!! Yep! They do so stay on point!

Ok so I get to the salon and decide to go with a very short, squared off look, one base color and no design. I struggle with whether I want a plain look for the nails since my outfits and personality can be so over the top sometimes. There's got to be some balance somewhere in my life LOL. Anywho as I'm sitting in this salon, one of the most expensive in the city, something began to catch my eye.
*Wait* let me back up for a second...I don't know if you know but I'm germ-a-phobic so any little nasty thing is going to catch my attention, I can't stand germs!
Ok so when I began to approach my favorite nail technician I noticed that none of the tools were sterile. I was disgusted! Yes completely disgusted!
I don't know that previous heifer whose dead skin cells are embedded all up in the filer, buffer, drill and etc! And I sure as hell don't want her nastiness on me! My thoughts were "why the hell are the tools not fresh or new"??
Believe it or not, NOT enough people complain about this unsanitary practice! It's dangerous! You better complain before you leave out of there with your nails pretty and a pretty nasty disease!

Worst case scenario...let me really paint this picture for you....
What if a lady with HIV/AIDS got her nails done before you and somehow her cuticle was nipped and she bled, her nails where filed down and all her dead skin cells are on the filer that is about to be used on you!
I want to instantly puke and pass out at the thought of this. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from getting a manicure but there are somethings that you just need to open your eyes to.

For all my pedicure lovers...don’t shave or wax a day before your pedi because your pores are open. Make sure that between customers you are watching that they are spraying anti bacteria spray or a cleaning agent to kill the bateria and germs from the previous customers. Just spraying the pedi bowl with water is not enough to KILL bacteria!
Then you want to make sure they are wiping the bowl dry. Why? because bacteria thrives in moisture! Also, never ever ever cut your cuticles!! The reason we have them is to protect against bacteria! God knew what he was doing when he designed the human body so stop chopping stuff off LOL.

You really want to be sure that every tool used on you is sterilized! One may ask, how would I know this fairy God mother Vee?
Fret not my beauties!
What you need to look for in the salon is a UV Sterilizer. Some of the fungus that lurks in salons include Ecoli, which comes from when people don’t wash their hands after the bathroom, then get their nails done and the tools aren’t sterilized. When nail tools are put in this small oven like object the bacteria is killed in the matter of a few minutes. If you still don’t trust that then take your own nail kit with you and have the technicians use that. Your personal kit can be cleaned with alcohol or in your home dishwasher.
Pedi lovers, in a lot of states the foot razors that are used to strap off the rough skin on your heels are illegal. Yep ILLEGAL, but 98% of nail salons still use and offer them to customers. This makes me think "if these salons are doing business in your communities and are considered "experts" in this industry and don’t know of such laws pertaining to their field as 'minor' as that then what other unsanitary practices are they doing that may potentially cause harm to the customers. Uggghh!! Dangerous!

Every week hundreds of people are infected from the services they receive at nail salons so please be careful in your quest to be Beautiful!

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