“The more sophisticated products are less coarse and require less sanding in the first place,” she says. Gloria Philips of the Academy of Beauty Care in Miami, Fla., says that carbide bur use may cause less dust but that the real culprits are bad products and coarse powders that require a lot of filing.

“Students, in particular, should use diamond bits when they’re learning because those bits arc gentler on the natural nail if the student hits it by accident.” “Carbide burs do cause less dust, but they’re not as gentle as diamond bits are,” says Iolli. One way to minimize dust is to use carbide burs, which cause less dust than diamond bits however, they do require greater skill, since they have small teeth that cut very quickly. If the technician is already working for us and decides she wants to begin using a drill, she has to get training from the manufacturer before she can use it in our salon.” Any technician who wants to use a drill must provide proof of training in drill use through some type of certification or verbally during the employment interview. We have vented tables in all our salons and if a technician wants to use a drill, we provide protective masks.

Says Paula Killingsworth, a JC Penney Styling Salon systems manager at the corporate offices in Plano, Texas, “Technicians may use drills if they need to, but we do not recommend their use. The nation’s 900-plus JC Penney salons have the closest thing to a standardized regulation we could find. Always wear a dust mask when using drills and offer them to clients.”įew salons have standing policies regarding the use of drills, although some salons attract clients by advertising that they offer natural nail systems only or use no drills - a show to growing concerns about salon environments among both clients and nail technicians. “We tell them never to do nails in their homes or around children.

“During enrollment, we tell all our students about the hazards of exposure to dust and chemicals,” says Karen Iolli, an instructor at Ailano School of Cosmetology in Brockton, Mass. Yet given all this, not a single technician we contacted said she unfailingly uses a dust mask when using drills. According to A Guide to Chemical Exposures in the Nail Salon, a book produced by the California Occupational Health Program, the acrylates used in sculptured nail systems can cause asthma as airborne dust, these chemicals can cause eye irritation and discomfort. The substance being abraded is much more likely to break into different-sized pieces.”īreathing in any type of dust on a regular basis is potentially harmful, but since drills and primarily used on sculptured nails, the potential danger is even greater. “A high-speed device would produce particles in the 10 to 100 micron range, or even smaller. “If you file manually, I’d guess that the resulting particles are about 100 to 1,000 microns ,” he says.

Weston, a West Chester, Pa., environmental consulting firm, agrees, noting that the particles from high speed drills arc small in size and are likely to be inhaled. Patrick Rafferty, technical director of industrial hygiene at Roy F. “You should definitely use a protective mask when drilling a good ventilation table is important as well.” “Drills create an extreme amount of dust and this is a major concern,” says Lynn Class, a nail instructor at Pittsburgh Beauty Academy.

Carbide vs diamond nail drill bits