The Green-Toed Client at 2:15
It is a busy Saturday at a licensed Michigan salon. Your 2:15 client, a 48-year-old woman, removes her own polish at your table and you see a yellow-green-to-black discoloration covering the distal third of her right great toenail. The nail plate has separated from the nail bed along that edge. There is no pain, no redness, and no pus in the surrounding skin. She has a whirlpool pedicure booked and jokes that she wants 'the full treatment, extra scrub, and don't worry about that, it's just polish stain.' Your next client arrives at 3:00 and the tub must be turned over between them. You have one credo blade, one set of nippers, and a fresh jar of disinfectant whose label lists a 10-minute contact time for its tuberculocidal claim.
1. Do you perform the pedicure as requested? Walk through your decision and what you offer instead.
Read the worked answer
Decline the service on the affected foot. The combination of green-black discoloration and nail-plate separation is a red flag for bacterial colonization under the plate (or another pathology you are not trained to identify). A nail technician cannot diagnose, and soaking, scrubbing, and applying product over a possibly infected site can spread organisms and worsen the client's condition. Do not 'file it off and cover it.'
Explain plainly and without diagnosing: 'This isn't something I can safely work over. I'd like you to have a doctor or podiatrist look at that toenail.' Offer the pedicure on the unaffected foot only, using separately disinfected implements, or reschedule entirely if she prefers. Record in the client file what you observed (location, color, separation), that you declined, and that you referred her. If the discoloration were clearly a bruise on an intact plate with no separation and no signs of infection you would have more room to proceed, but with these two findings together the safe judgment is referral.
2. How must the whirlpool tub be processed before the 3:00 client, and what happens if the turnover cannot be completed in time?
Read the worked answer
Drain the tub, then clean all surfaces with soap and water and a brush to remove debris and biofilm; disinfectant does not work through soil. Then refill with water and an EPA-registered hospital-grade disinfectant mixed at the label's dilution, ensuring every interior surface contacts the solution for the full label contact time (here, 10 minutes for the tuberculocidal claim). Because you just saw a possible infection, use the higher-level claim rather than a low-level wipe, and do not shorten the time. Drain, rinse, and let it dry before the next soak.
If 45 minutes does not allow for proper cleaning, full contact time, and drying, you do not have a compliant tub. Move the 3:00 client to a non-whirlpool pedicure or reschedule them. A 'quick wipe' between clients is exactly the shortcut that spreads organisms and fails inspection.
3. Sort the implements and materials you used and state the handling for each.
Read the worked answer
Reusable metal (nippers, credo blade handle, metal pusher): scrub to remove all residue, dry, then process with the salon's approved method (hospital-grade disinfectant with the correct contact time, or sterilization for items that cut). Keep anything that touched the affected nail in a separate labeled bin until processed so it cannot re-enter the drawer.
Porous or single-use items (file, buffer, pumice stone, orange stick, foam toe separators): these cannot be reliably disinfected, so they go to the client or into the trash. Never return them to the communal drawer, and never use a shared pumice on two clients.
Also: gloves on before touching the foot, gloves off and hand hygiene after, and the client's polish bottle wiped. The judgment point is that porous versus non-porous, not 'which items look dirty,' drives the decision.