When a Salon Is Unsanitary, a Bad Nail Job Is a Customer's Least Worry
When a Salon Is Unsanitary, a Bad Nail Job Is a Customer's Least Worry
By LAUREL NAVERSEN GERAGHTY
Published: May 4, 2006
NO matter how intense, a medicure, or any pedicure or manicure, should leave
your nails looking gorgeous, not grotesque. But a number of nail infections that
can be picked up at salons can lead to unsightly or even life-threatening
results, doctors say.
The issue of nail salon sanitation became national news when the "American Idol"
judge Paula Abdul had her thumbnail removed in 2004 after contracting an
infection she said she got from a manicure. Forty percent of women say they get
pedicures at least occasionally, according to the market research firm Mintel
International Group, yet little is known about how often infections from nail
salons occur.
"I hear about them sporadically," said Dr. Kevin L. Winthrop, an infectious
disease epidemiologist in Portland, Ore. "They're definitely out there."
Many conditions that can be transmitted are not reported, said Dr. Katie Rodan,
a dermatologist in Oakland, Calif. And infections cannot always be easily traced
to a salon because the symptoms usually do not appear until later, doctors say.
Customers can potentially pick up athlete's foot, warts or yeast infections, or
even, possibly, H.I.V., hepatitis C, or staph infections if salons do not
disinfect equipment properly, Dr. Rodan said.
New York requires salons to use emery boards and bar soap only once. Salons in
some states, including New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Oregon and Massachusetts,
must also clean tools and equipment using hospital-grade disinfectant after each
customer, though not all such disinfectants kill bacteria, yeast or the
hepatitis C virus, Dr. Rodan said.
Dr. Winthrop was with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2000
when he investigated a mycobacteria outbreak that left more than 100 women in
northern California with boils on their legs that took months to heal. He traced
the bacteria to the whirlpool footbaths in a single salon. California, Texas and
Arizona now require salons to clean the suction screens within whirlpool
footbaths, where bacteria may accumulate.
To reduce the risk of infection, dermatologists recommend that customers take
their own tools to the salon. Most drugstores and beauty supply stores carry
kits. Dermatologists suggest making sure that the salon and the technician are
licensed by the state. It also helps to seek out the rare salon that uses an
autoclave, a device that sterilizes tools with steam and heat. Dr. Winthrop
recommends that women avoid shaving their legs for 24 hours before a pedicure
because nicks can make the skin more vulnerable to infection.
Those who provide their own tools need to make sure the technician uses them, as
Dr. Rodan discovered after her toe was cut during a pedicure at a San Francisco
salon. "You were using my instruments, right?" she recalled asking the woman
working on her feet, but the woman said she had forgotten to do so. At that
point, Dr. Rodan left the salon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/fashion/thursdaystyles/04sside.html?_r=1&oref=\
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