"Jorge1907" <jorge1907 at aol.comcomm> wrote in message
news:20041206062204.08274.00001613 at mb-m05.aol.com...
> This seems pretty extreme for a barber shop - you'll certainly need to
> take
> precautions to protect yourself and others from formaldehyde vapors.
>> Have you looked into disposable materials? You might also consider that
> simply
> washing in hot water is pretty effective - and effect a reasonable
> turnover in
> duster use.
>> Good luck
Extreme? I dunno . . . some states prohibit barbers from using
duster-brushes anymore because of the sanitation problems. Most barbers
use the same brush on all their clients day after day for years on end,
regardless if they have the flu or ringworm or whatever. I suppose that
most of the time there's no problem, but, the other 5% or 20% or whatever of
the time, it would have been better to have used a clean brush.
Same consideration goes with washing hands . . . I'm sure the 20th
customer of the day would appreciate not having the germ-covered hands that
ran through 19 stranger's hair running through his . . .
Just trying to do things right; trying to figure out a reasonable and
effective way to do it . . .
I tried getting the Marvy #53 brush wet, and discovered that they don't
like that . . . the wood handle splits and the hairs fall out. Not good.
And I discovered that leaving 'em in a closed box with a small block of
paraformaldehyde takes 24 hours to work, and then it only gets the outside
of the brush--the vapors won't penetrate too well.
But, I think I might be able to use the cheap Marvy shaving brushes as
hair dusters . . . they're $2 each in quantity, are engineered to handle
moisture, and have enough fibers on 'em to work well as dusters, and not so
many that they'll take forever to dry after 20 minutes in a quat solution.
Ya, I never paid much attention to sanitation from the folks who cut my
hair, but having been through both beauty and barber school and worked on
lots of heads, it looks like it's pretty easy to spread ringworm and fungal
infections. Probably lots easier to spread respiratory germs, so, since
the prevention is so simple and obvious, there's really no reason not to do
the right thing and run a sanitary shop.
Thanks,
-Tock
ps--something you might want to check . . . if the place you get your hair
cut doesn't have any sinks around, chances are your haircutter hasn't washed
their hands all day long . . . . in that case, you definitely want to be
their first customer of the day . . .
