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Beauty Therapy study materials
Beauty Therapy study resources

Beauty Therapy: Health, Safety, and Infection Control

Beauty Therapy · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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Health, Safety, and Infection Control

Health, Safety, and Infection Control

This domain tests the chain of infection, hand hygiene, PPE, the cleaning–disinfection–sterilisation hierarchy, waste handling, COSHH, RIDDOR, electrical safety and management of contra-actions in the salon.

Core rules

  • Hand hygiene. Wash for 20–30 seconds with soap and water when hands are visibly soiled; use 60–70% alcohol gel when they are not. Follow the WHO "five moments" and always before and after client contact and after removing gloves.
  • PPE. Gloves, apron and eye protection are single-use and changed between clients. Gloves supplement hand washing; they do not replace it.
  • Cleaning, disinfection, sterilisation. Cleaning physically removes soil and most micro-organisms; disinfection reduces pathogens but not necessarily spores; sterilisation destroys all micro-organisms including spores.
  • Spaulding classification. Critical items (break the skin, e.g. cuticle nippers) must be sterilised, typically by autoclave at 134 °C for 3 minutes or 121 °C for 15 minutes. Semi-critical items contacting intact skin or mucous membrane need high-level disinfection. Non-critical surfaces need cleaning plus a low-level disinfectant.
  • Single-use items. Files, spatulas, cotton, wooden sticks and mascara wands are never re-used.
  • COSHH. Assess, label, store and use chemicals per the safety data sheet.
  • Waste. Sharps into a sharps container; contaminated waste segregated as clinical waste.

Worked example

A metal cuticle nipper has been used. Scrub it with detergent and a brush to remove debris, rinse, dry, seal in a sterilization pouch, autoclave at 134 °C for 3 minutes and log the cycle. A plastic nail file from the same service cannot be reliably disinfected, so it is single-use - gift it to the client or discard it.

Traps that cost marks

Calling an alcohol soak "sterilisation"; topping up disinfectant solution rather than remaking it; storing clean and used tools together; double-dipping a wax spatula; treating gloves as a substitute for hand hygiene.