Nail salon fumes can and do cause the air to smell bad. As a nail tech, letting an air purifier filter the air rather than your lungs and liver is a healthy choice. But not all air purifiers are equal. Here are 5 features your cleaner should have to insure that it can really make a difference in the way your air smells.
Chemical Filter—If there’s one thing that usually grabs a customer’s attention when they enter your salon, it’s the odor.. Many times if the door is open, you can smell the chemicals even before you enter. So imagine what that is doing to your body if you are breathing that air day in and day out as you work.
Many of the products used to make fingernails and toenails beautiful, make the air stink. These volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) are powerful and evaporate into the air easily at room temperature. Without taking proactive steps to remove these pollutants, the air can and does become thick.
A carbon-based filter is a must. Hands down, carbon is the best type of filter for removing gaseous pollutants. But as effective as carbon is, even it needs help removing the kinds of chemicals found in salons. An additive such as potassium iodide is needed to enhance the carbon’s ability to remove these strong chemical fumes.
24 Hour Operation—-If you walk into the shop in the morning smelling the products that were used yesterday, you’ll appreciate having a cleaner that can eliminate yesterday’s smells and make the salon smell fresh at the start of each day.
Choosing a cleaner that can work 24 hours a day is the solution. A split capacitor motor is designed to keep going and going without neither a rest. Having a portable stand-alone unit with this kind of motor gives you continuous cleaning which is necessary to minimize the fumes.
More Than One Filtration Speed—Every day is a different day. Some days the salon may be packed, other days not so much. Having your cleaner be able to step up its filtration and keep up with the fumes is an important option to have.
When there are lots of customers, it follows that there will be lots of fumes. Being able to move the air through the filter faster will help keep the odor down and help the air to continue to smell fresh to new customers who enter.
Can Go Where You Need It—Most cleaners filter the air that is closest to them. Being able to roll the cleaner closer to the offending fumes is huge. The wheels should be able to roll over all types of surfaces without damage to either the cleaner or the floor.
Not only is it good to have a unit that can move easily around the shop, but one that can go with you to a new shop on the other side of town or across the country.
360 Degree Intake—A purifier that can pull air from all sides means that it can be placed anywhere in your shop. It can go in a corner, under a shelf, or on top of a counter. The most space that it should need to still work well is about 6 inches from every surface.