Sanitation, Sterilization, and Infection Control
This domain decides whether a shop keeps its license. The exam asks you to name the levels of decontamination, match each implement to the correct level, and apply universal precautions to a real exposure.
Three levels - never interchangeable
- Sanitation: washing with soap or detergent and water to remove visible debris. It reduces microbes but does not kill them; it is the required first step before disinfection, never a substitute.
- Disinfection: an EPA-registered hospital disinfectant, ideally with a tuberculocidal claim, used for the full label contact time (commonly 10 minutes). It destroys most pathogens but not bacterial spores.
- Sterilization: destroys all microbial life including spores - steam autoclave (about 15 psi, 121 °C/250 °F, 20 minutes), dry heat, or a chemical sterilant. Reserved for implements that contacted blood or broke skin.
Daily routine
Wash hands before and after every client. Remove hair and product from implements, dry them, immerse fully in disinfectant, then store in a closed clean container. Porous items - wooden combs, foam pads, buffing blocks - cannot be disinfected and must be discarded or single-use. Clippers are wiped or sprayed onto a cloth, never immersed; remove the blade, clean, then oil. Keep clean and soiled linens in separate closed containers.
Contagious conditions
Refuse service for tinea capitis, ringworm, pediculosis, impetigo, scabies, active cold sores, and open draining lesions. Treat every client's blood as infectious.
Worked example
Shears nick a client's ear and draw blood. Stop, glove, clean the wound, apply styptic. The shears are now a blood-exposure item: clean them, then sterilize or disinfect with a tuberculocidal hospital disinfectant at full contact time - a towel wipe is not enough. The towel goes into a closed soiled hamper and the incident is documented.
Traps
Confusing sanitation with disinfection; trusting a UV cabinet to sterilize; topping off a jar instead of changing the solution; leaving hair in the bath, which inactivates the chemical.