2.4 Personal Hygiene, Product Handling & Hazard Communication
Key Takeaways
- 820 IAC 3-1-8 requires washing hands with soap and fresh water or using waterless hand sanitizer before serving each customer, and wearing a clean, opaque, washable outer garment while serving customers.
- 820 IAC 8-1-3 separately requires every barber and student to wash hands with soap and water immediately before serving each patron and prohibits smoking while serving a customer.
- OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard (29 CFR 1910.1200) requires a written program, labeled containers, accessible Safety Data Sheets, and employee training for every hazardous salon chemical.
- A Safety Data Sheet has 16 standardized sections in a fixed order; Sections 1 through 8 carry the identification, hazard, first-aid, firefighting, spill, handling, and exposure-control information a barber needs at the chair.
- Products decanted into secondary containers must be labeled with the product identifier and hazard information; never store or dispense professional chemicals in unlabeled or food/beverage containers.
Personal Hygiene, Product Handling & Hazard Communication
Quick Summary: Content Area I of the Indiana Barber examination is 30% of the test, and two of its sub-topics — maintaining safe working conditions (labeling, chemical handling and storage, Safety Data Sheets) and personal hygiene / dispensing and disposal of products — are pure recall items. Indiana adds its own hand-washing and garment rules on top of the federal standard.
Personal Hygiene: Two Indiana Rules That Stack
| Duty | Rule | Exact Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Hand hygiene, salon side | 820 IAC 3-1-8(a) | Wash hands with soap and fresh water or use a waterless hand sanitizer before serving each customer |
| Hand hygiene, barber side | 820 IAC 8-1-3 | Wash hands with soap and water immediately before serving each patron |
| Outer garment | 820 IAC 3-1-8(b) | A clean, opaque, washable outer garment at all times while serving customers |
| Smoking | 820 IAC 8-1-3 | No smoking while serving a customer |
| Clean linen per patron | 820 IAC 8-1-2 | A clean towel and either a clean hair cloth or a neck strip for each patron |
Note the difference in wording: the general salon rule permits waterless hand sanitizer as an alternative, while the barber rule is written as soap and water. In practice, wash with soap and water whenever hands are visibly soiled or after any blood contact, and reserve alcohol-based sanitizer for clean hands between quick services.
Professional grooming standards that support these rules: short clean fingernails, hair secured away from the face and the client, no jewelry that can harbor debris or catch a client, deodorant use, and no eating or drinking at the workstation.
Hazard Communication: The OSHA Framework
Barbershops use hazardous chemicals — ammonium thioglycolate, sodium hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide, persulfate lighteners, aerosol propellants, and EPA-registered disinfectant concentrates. OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard, 29 CFR 1910.1200, therefore applies to any shop with employees. Its four pillars:
- A written hazard communication program kept on site.
- Labels on every container of a hazardous chemical.
- Safety Data Sheets (SDS) readily accessible to employees during every shift.
- Employee information and training on the hazards and the protective measures.
[!IMPORTANT] SDS, not MSDS. The Globally Harmonized System replaced the old MSDS with the 16-section SDS. Indiana's own examination outline was revised specifically to change item I.A.3.c from "Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS)" to "Safety Data Sheets (SDS)" — so an answer option still saying MSDS is a deliberate distractor.
The 16 Sections of a Safety Data Sheet
The order is fixed by regulation, which is why exam items ask "which section contains…".
| # | Section | What a barber uses it for |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Identification | Product name, manufacturer, emergency phone number |
| 2 | Hazard(s) identification | Signal word, pictograms, hazard statements |
| 3 | Composition / ingredients | Which active chemical is present and at what concentration |
| 4 | First-aid measures | What to do for eye, skin, inhalation, and ingestion exposure |
| 5 | Fire-fighting measures | Extinguisher type for aerosols and alcohols |
| 6 | Accidental release measures | Spill cleanup and containment |
| 7 | Handling and storage | Storage temperature, incompatibilities, ventilation |
| 8 | Exposure controls / PPE | Gloves, eye protection, ventilation requirements |
| 9 | Physical and chemical properties | pH, appearance, odor, flash point |
| 10 | Stability and reactivity | What the product must not be mixed with |
| 11 | Toxicological information | Routes of exposure and symptoms |
| 12 | Ecological information | Environmental effects |
| 13 | Disposal considerations | Correct disposal route |
| 14 | Transport information | Shipping classification |
| 15 | Regulatory information | Other applicable regulations |
| 16 | Other information | Revision date of the sheet |
Sections 12 through 15 are prepared under other agencies' authority and are not enforced by OSHA, but they must still be present for the sheet to be complete.
Labeling, Storage, and Dispensing
- Original containers keep the manufacturer's label. Never remove or deface it.
- Secondary containers must be labeled. The moment a disinfectant concentrate, developer, or shampoo is decanted into an applicator bottle, that bottle needs the product identifier and hazard information. An unlabeled spray bottle of "something blue" is a citable hazard communication failure and a genuine poisoning risk.
- Never use food or beverage containers for professional chemicals.
- Store by hazard class, not by convenience. Keep oxidizers (hydrogen peroxide, persulfate lighteners) away from reducing agents (thioglycolates) and away from heat and sunlight. Store heavy jugs low. Keep aerosols away from open flame, hot styling tools, and direct sun.
- Ventilation. 820 IAC 8-1-2 requires barber shops and schools to be well ventilated; keep chemical work near the ventilation source and keep lids closed on disinfectant jars between uses to limit vapor.
Sanitary dispensing (Content Area I.B.4)
| Practice | Correct method |
|---|---|
| Creams, pomades, gels from a jar | Use a clean spatula or single-use applicator — never fingers, and never return unused product to the jar |
| Liquids | Pour into a clean dispensing dish or applicator bottle; do not touch the bottle mouth to the client or the applicator |
| Powders (alum, talc) | Dispense into a clean container or onto a single-use pad; never apply a shared block or shaker directly to broken skin |
| Product left over after a service | Discard it. Product that has left the container or contacted a client, an implement, or a work surface is contaminated |
Disposal
- Single-use items — neck strips, razor blades, gloves, cotton, applicators — are discarded after one client. Razor blades and other sharps go into a rigid, puncture-resistant, closable, leak-proof sharps container, never into the general waste.
- Blood-contaminated waste is double-bagged and handled per the shop's exposure control plan under 29 CFR 1910.1030.
- Waste receptacles must be covered, and Indiana requires at least one covered receptacle for every four workstations (820 IAC 3-1-4).
- Chemical disposal follows Section 13 of the SDS and local ordinance. Large volumes of relaxer, lightener, or disinfectant concentrate are not automatically drain-safe.
Which section of a Safety Data Sheet tells a barber what to do immediately after a lightener splashes into a client's eye?
Under 820 IAC 3-1-8, what must an Indiana licensee wear while serving customers?
A barber decants EPA-registered disinfectant concentrate into an unmarked spray bottle kept at the station. What is the compliance problem?
A barber scoops pomade from a communal jar with two fingers, applies most of it, and returns the remainder to the jar. Which principle does this violate?