Client Safety and Infection Control
Safety questions in this exam are practical: what you do with your hands, your tools, your waste and your client's history before, during and after treatment. Expect scenarios rather than definitions alone.
Chain of infection and standard precautions
An infectious agent needs a reservoir, exit, transmission route, entry and susceptible host. Standard precautions apply to every client regardless of appearance: hand hygiene before and after contact and after glove removal, gloves for blood or body fluid contact, aprons, eye protection when decanting or spraying, covered cuts, no jewellery, hair tied back.
Cleaning, disinfection, sterilisation - three different verbs
- Cleaning removes soil and organic load; disinfection is ineffective on dirty tools.
- Disinfection reduces pathogens; use hospital-grade products at the labelled contact time (commonly 5–10 minutes). Alcohol wipes are not sterilisation.
- Sterilisation destroys spores: autoclave at 121 °C for about 15 minutes or 134 °C for 3–4 minutes in a validated class B cycle, with ultrasonic pre-cleaning of hinged or grooved items and cycle logging.
Single-use and waste
Needles, lancets, spatulas, cotton, sheet masks and gloves are single use. Sharps go directly into a puncture-resistant sharps container, never into general waste. Never top up a product bottle; decant with a clean spatula and label opening dates.
Chemicals and environment
Follow the EU CLP labelling and the product safety data sheet; ventilate rooms where acids, acetone or high-frequency ozone may be present; store acids below eye level, locked, away from heat. Clean and dirty zones must not share surfaces.
Adverse events
Patch test 24–48 hours before first acid, tint or adhesive use. If a peel burns or a client reports stinging, remove product, cool with water, neutralise if the protocol requires it, apply a soothing barrier, document times and products, and refer for blistering, eye involvement or spreading erythema.
Worked example
A drop of 30% glycolic peel reaches a client's eye. Reasoning: eye involvement outranks the rest of the facial; irrigate with eyewash or clean water for at least 15 minutes, check the SDS, arrange medical assessment, complete an incident report and review the application technique.
Traps that cost marks
- Describing an alcohol wipe as sterilisation.
- Disinfecting before cleaning.
- Reusing a spatula after it touched skin.
- Proceeding after an equivocal patch test.