Are You Ready for an Inspection?
State inspections are usually a surprise, and planned to catch you and your team off-guard. I asked Diane Hannig, Owner of Sinfully Good Body and Soul in Ohio, what inspectors have looked for in her dozen salon inspections. “Ohio is a very tough state,” explains Hannig. “The first thing they want to see are your equipment manuals, along with your lamp-compatibility chart. This is a Federal law, so you need to have the manual where your staff can find it if you aren’t at the salon.”
Hannig says that after she shows inspectors her well-organized three-ring binders with all her electrical and bed technical info, they always walk around the salon and poke into every nook and cranny, spending extra care in the bathroom to ensure it is sanitary. During their visit, the inspectors will not allow the salon staff to follow them. They want to see towels stored away, not out in the open where they pick up airborne contaminants. This was new to me! “They do not want to see bed-cleaning solution left in the room,” Hannig adds. “They want to see clean towels every time for wiping down each bed, so that sweat and body fluids aren’t being shared with the next tanner.” She says the inspectors want to see a log of when we made up each batch of cleaning solution. Each bed cleaner brand requires fresh solution to be mixed every 24 hours, so inspectors want to see your log and who is mixing it. “They will test it with litmus strips and expect you to have litmus strips in your mixing station,” Hannig shares. In addition, inspectors may ask to see your Standard Procedures Manual and Staff Training Manual. What are your policies for pregnant tanners, people under-18,tanners who won’t wear eyewear, and what to do in an emergency? This all needs to be in a manual for staff reference after they are trained.
