Salons and Barbershops: Chemicals, Ventilation and Clients in the Chair

Why this matters

A salon runs on chemistry with a clock attached. A client with hair color or a relaxer on has a rinse time, and when it arrives, the stylist needs warm water at the bowl, not in 20 minutes when your new valve is in. A water shutoff that would be an inconvenience in an office can leave a client with a chemical on her scalp past its time, which is a burn risk for her and a real liability for the salon. Salons also carry vapors from nail and hair products that change what a tech can safely do with a torch, and their ventilation complaints are usually not what they sound like.

The salon day is built from timed processes

The appointment book is the operating schedule, and the services in it are not equal from your point of view:

• Cuts, styling and blowouts need power at the station and warm water at the bowl for the shampoo. They can be moved, shortened or done dry if the stylist and client agree.
• Color is applied, left to process for the time the product's instructions give (often in the range of half an hour to most of an hour for permanent color, depending on the product), then rinsed. Once applied, the rinse cannot be postponed.
• Lighteners and highlights process under foil or open air and are checked and rinsed on the stylist's timing.
• Relaxers and straighteners are the least forgiving. Left on past the manufacturer's time, they can burn the scalp. The rinse is a safety step.
• Perms have a processing step and a neutralizing step, both timed, both rinsed.

So the rule for any water or power interruption: no chemical service may be in process when hot water or the shampoo bowls go out, and none may start until they are back. A cut can absorb a delay. A relaxer cannot.

Barbershops are usually simpler: more cuts and shaves, fewer chemical services. But hot towels, warmers and the hot water for shaves still make the water heater part of the business, and many shops do color too. Ask; do not assume.

The quiet day is on the front desk's calendar

Many salons close one or two days a week, commonly Sunday, Monday or both, and some open late on other days. Those days are the obvious choice for planned work, but the only reliable source is the front desk and the book, not your guess about when salons are slow. Ask three things: which days the salon is closed, which hours on open days have no chemical services booked, and who can move an appointment if needed. In a booth-rental salon, each stylist may run their own book, and the owner can only speak for the building, so the window has to work for every renter's book on that day.

Vapors: what is in the air, and what it means for you

Salons use products whose vapors are inhalation hazards for the people working there all day, and some of them change the fire picture for your work.

• Nail services. Acetone and other solvents for polish removal, acrylic monomers, and fine dust from filing acrylic and gel. Acetone is highly flammable and its vapor is heavier than air, so it collects low, near the floor and around nail tables.
• Hair products. Ammonia and other alkaline vapors from color and relaxers, aerosol propellants from hairspray, and, in some hair-smoothing treatments, formaldehyde. OSHA has issued a hazard alert on formaldehyde from hair-smoothing products, and its formaldehyde standard, 29 CFR 1910.1048, applies to salon employers whose workers are exposed.

What changes for the trade tech.

• Hot work near nail areas. Before you braze, solder or run a grinder anywhere near a nail station, the nail services stop, open containers of solvent are capped and moved out of the area, and the space is ventilated. Do not light a torch while acetone is in use in the room.
• Gas appliances. A gas water heater or furnace in a closet next to a nail area is drawing combustion air that may carry solvent vapor. Flammable vapor near a burner is an ignition hazard; some salon vapors also corrode heat exchangers and vents over time. If a gas appliance's closet opens onto a chemical area, note it for the owner. Gas appliance service, venting and the combustion check after startup are licensed work in most places.
• Your own exposure. You are in the salon air for an hour or two, not a shift, but if you are working at ceiling level over a nail area during services, you are in the vapor the stylists are complaining about. Schedule ceiling work over nail tables when services are not running.

Ventilation complaints that are really exhaust problems

"The AC smells like chemicals," "everybody gets headaches by 3 o'clock," "the front of the salon reeks of nail polish." These sound like a cooling or filter problem. Usually they are an exhaust problem, and the fix is not a new filter.

Salons depend on removing vapor at the source and from the room:

• Source capture. Nail tables with built-in downdraft or local exhaust pull vapor and dust from the work surface. If their fans are off, clogged, or ducted into the ceiling plenum instead of outdoors, the vapor goes into the room and into the return air.
• General exhaust. A dedicated exhaust fan, often required for the chemical area by the building or mechanical code as adopted locally, pulls room air out. If it is off, broken, or was disconnected during a remodel, the salon's air conditioner just recirculates the vapor.
• Makeup air. Exhaust only works if air can come in to replace what it removes. A salon with powerful exhaust and tight doors starves the fan, and it moves much less than its rating.
• The return path. A return grille next to the nail area pulls vapor into the system and delivers it across the whole salon. Moving the problem is not removing it.

The first move on a smell complaint: find every exhaust fan, check that it runs, and check where it discharges. Then check whether the nail tables' local exhaust works. Only then look at the air handler. Many salons have been sold a second filter or a bigger unit for a problem that was a dead exhaust fan.

Worked example: a leaking water heater on a Thursday

A six-chair salon calls at 8:15 on a Thursday: the gas tank water heater in the back closet is leaking from the bottom. The salon is closed Sunday and Monday, so the next quiet day is four days away. The tech arrives at 8:45, confirms the tank is failing, and has a replacement on the truck. Estimated time to replace and restart: 2 hours 30 minutes, during which there is no hot water. Cold water stays on to the bowls if the heater's own cold inlet valve shuts off tight.

First, test the valve. With the front desk's okay, the tech closes the heater's cold inlet valve and has a stylist open a hot tap at a bowl. Flow tapers to nothing within a minute and stays off. The valve holds. That matters: if it did not, the main would have to go off for the swap, killing cold water to the bowls and the restroom, and the window would have to be one with no services of any kind. The tech reopens the valve; the tank goes back in service until the window, with a pan and towels under it and the leak checked every hour.

Read the book. The front desk prints Thursday:

THURSDAY  (chemical services marked *)
9:00  Chair 1  *color, rinse approx 9:50
9:30  Chair 3  *relaxer, rinse approx 10:10
10:00 Chair 2  *highlights, rinse approx 11:15
11:30 Chair 1  cut, shampoo
12:00 Chair 4  cut, shampoo
12:30 Chair 3  dry cut
1:00  Chair 2  cut, shampoo
1:30  Chair 5  *perm, first rinse approx 2:30
3:00  Chair 1  *color, rinse approx 3:50
LAST RINSE BEFORE GAP: 11:15
FIRST RINSE AFTER GAP: 2:30

Find the window. The last chemical rinse before the gap is 11:15. The first rinse after it is the perm's at about 2:30, and hot water should be back and up to temperature well before that rinse, so the tech wants a margin of at least 15 minutes. That leaves a window from about 11:20 to 2:15, which is 2 hours 55 minutes. The job is 2 hours 30 minutes, so the margin is 25 minutes.

The cuts in the window. Three clients in the window need a shampoo (11:30, 12:00 and 1:00). With cold water only, shampoos are uncomfortable but possible; the owner decides to call the 11:30 and 12:00 clients to offer a later time and keep the 1:00 by heating rinse water in the back. The 12:30 dry cut is unaffected.

The perm. The 1:30 perm is booked to start inside the window, which the rule above does not allow. The perm's first rinse at about 2:30 is the hard stop. The owner agrees to hold the perm start until the tech confirms hot water is on, and the stylist can push it to 1:45 with the client's okay, which moves the first rinse to about 2:45 and the margin to 40 minutes.

The work. The tech starts at 11:20, shuts off the gas to the heater, lets the tank water cool at a hot tap before draining because tank water is hot enough to scald, drains to the floor drain through a hose, and swaps the heater, then fills the new tank with a hot tap open until water runs steady, so the burner never fires on a dry tank. Before relighting, the vent connection is checked for a tight, correctly pitched joint. After startup the tech confirms draft at the vent and checks for carbon monoxide at the appliance with a combustion analyzer, and the nail station across the hall stays shut down until the burner is proved and the closet door is closed. Hot water reaches a bowl at 1:40, at temperature by 1:55.

Outcome. The perm starts at 1:45 after the tech confirms hot water at the bowl. The 11:30 and 12:00 clients moved to later times, the 1:00 was kept with heated rinse water, and no chemical service was interrupted.

What would have changed it. If the inlet valve had not held, or if the book had a chemical service processing between 11:30 and 2:00, the window would not exist and the job would go to after close, 7:00 that evening, with the leak managed until then. If the leak had been a steady stream rather than a drip, the tank would come out of service immediately and the salon would decide which services to run on cold water, but no chemical service would start.

How to verify you have it right

Before any water or power interruption at a salon, confirm with the front desk, in this order: no chemical service will be in process when the water goes off; none will start until you say it is back; the person who can move appointments has seen your window. After the work, confirm hot water at the bowls, not just at the heater, and confirm any exhaust or ventilation you touched is running and discharging outdoors.

References

• OSHA hazard alert on formaldehyde in hair-smoothing products, and 29 CFR 1910.1048 (formaldehyde)
• OSHA guidance on health hazards in nail salons
• Product instructions for hair color, relaxers and perms, for processing times
• See related: The Water Shutoff That Caught a Client Mid-Color; What a Business Cannot Shut Down and for How Long