21.1 Chemical Use, Storage, and Formaldehyde

21.1 Chemical Use, Storage, and Formaldehyde

Quick Answer: The Oregon Laws and Rules Examination scores Chemicals as 8 of 90 items. Oregon barbering does not include color, perm, or relaxer, but the same shop still stores disinfectants, alcohol, and — in mixed facilities — hair-design products. Oregon Administrative Rule (OAR) 817-060-0020 is how those products sit so they cannot mix, ignite, or explode. OAR 817-060-0050 is who counts as the “employer” when a product may contain formaldehyde.

The Oregon Laws and Rules Examination (bulletin revised March 1, 2014) is 90 questions. Chemicals is 8 of those 90. Candidates miss the cluster because they treat it as hair-design homework. Oregon Revised Statute (ORS) 690.005 defines barbering as shampooing, styling, cutting, singeing, conditioning, applying hair tonics and dressings, massage of the scalp, face, and neck without galvanic or faradic appliances, and shaving or trimming the beard. Color, permanent waving, and relaxing are hair design, not barbering. That scope limit does not erase Division 60.

OAR 817-005-0005(7) defines chemical service as the use of any product that restructures or removes hair or changes the shape or appearance of skin, hair, or nails. A barber’s disinfectant, alcohol, and shaving preparation, and the hair designer’s perm lotion on the same premises, are all chemical-service products. OAR 817-005-0005(26) lists materials and supplies that include hair tints, bleaches, permanent-wave solutions, shampoos, wax, rinses, disinfectants, and chemicals. If those products sit in your facility, you store them under Division 60 even when your own certificate does not authorize color. Hair-design coworkers in the same licensed facility create shared chemical obligations. The inspector walks the common area — OAR 817-005-0005(8) includes dispensing areas, sinks, and shampoo bowls used by all authorization holders — not only the chair that cut the last fade.

Three classes, two defined terms

OAR 817-060-0020(1) does not invent shop chemistry. For this section, corrosives, flammables (aerosol, gas, liquid, and/or solid), and oxidizers are used as defined by OAR 437, Division 2, General Occupational Safety and Health Rules, Toxic and Hazardous Substances, as amended and in effect September 25, 2012. That is Oregon OSHA language, borrowed on purpose. Alcohol, aerosol sprays, and some solvents are the flammable picture. Peroxide and some developers are the oxidizer picture. Concentrated disinfectants and some hair-design straighteners are the corrosive picture. You are not asked to recite a federal table. You are asked not to store a flammable next to an oxidizer “because both bottles fit.”

OAR 817-060-0020(2) then defines two Board words:

• Hazardous means capable of causing an unplanned, uncontrolled reaction that could present a hazard to authorization holders or clients by explosion, fire, release of toxic gases or by-products, or physical or chemical burns.
• Segregated in storage means potentially hazardous chemicals and materials are separated — to prevent mixing through leakage, spillage, or breakage — by an adequate distance or through physical barriers such as partitions or separate shelving.

Hazardous is a reaction risk, not a scary label on the jug. Segregated is distance or a barrier, not “I meant to keep them apart.” Two bottles that can leak into each other on the same shelf are not segregated.

Store so nothing ignites, explodes, or burns a body

OAR 817-060-0020(3): chemicals must be stored safely to avoid fire, explosion and bodily injury. OAR 817-060-0020(4): flammable chemicals must be stored separate from potential sources of ignition. A candle, a match used to light a cigarette outside and then carried in, a portable heater against the dispensary, or an open flame at a station during a chemical service is an ignition source. Mixing near flame is a handling miss under 817-060-0030; storing flammables next to that flame is a storage miss under (4).

Then the Board splits storage by container size and how reactive the contents are.

One gallon or less — OAR 817-060-0020(5). Chemical containers holding one gallon or less may be stored in the same area or in the same storage cabinet if one of these is true:

• (a) Containers of reactive chemicals are separated by location or sufficient distance, for example at least 12 inches apart or on different shelves, to prevent their reaction; or
• (b) Glass bottles of reactive chemicals are treated to make them break-resistant (for example, resin-coated), or are stored in rubber buckets or sleeves, or are stored with a partition separating them.

Twelve inches is the rule’s own example of sufficient distance. Different shelves is the other example. Glass that can shatter into a neighbor’s oxidizer needs a coating, a sleeve, a bucket, or a partition. “They’re both under a gallon, so they can kiss on the same shelf” fails (5) unless one of those conditions is met.

Highly reactive, or greater than one gallon — OAR 817-060-0020(6). Chemicals that are highly reactive or kept in containers greater than one gallon must be stored in separate cabinets, in safety-valve containers, or in locations isolated from other chemicals. A two-gallon disinfectant drum next to a gallon of alcohol in the same cupboard is the classic miss. Isolation is a different cabinet, a safety-valve container, or a different location — not a sticky note that says “careful.”

OAR 817-060-0020(9) allows chemicals to be stored in containers approved by the Oregon Department of Transportation for shipping. That is a permitted container class, not a requirement to use freight drums as salon décor.

Damp chemical waste and towels — airtight metal

OAR 817-060-0020(7): waste related to chemical services, or waste that has been chemically dampened or saturated, must be disposed of in a fire-retardant container pursuant to OAR 817-010-0035 and 817-010-0060. OAR 817-060-0020(8): chemically treated, dampened, or saturated towels must be stored in a fire-retardant container under the same two rules. OAR 817-005-0005(20) defines fire-retardant container as an airtight metal container for disposing of chemical waste or storing linens with chemical residue. A plastic swing-lid can is not that container. A wicker hamper by the heater is not that container. Chapter 17 already taught the towel and refuse clocks; Division 60 points back to those clocks for chemically dampened stock. The laws exam will still write the metal, airtight picture on a Chemicals item.

Formaldehyde — city through federal, then who is the employer

OAR 817-060-0050(1): an authorization holder providing services with products that may contain formaldehyde must adhere to all city, county, state or federal laws, rules, codes, and regulations related to formaldehyde. The product label saying “formaldehyde-free” does not end the duty if the product may contain it or may release it when heated. Keratin-style smoothing, some hair-design straightening systems, and certain salon products historically sold as “smoothing” are the usual picture. A barber who never applies those products still works in a facility that might. The Board does not write a barber exemption.

OAR 817-060-0050(2): the Office and Board adopt by reference Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division OAR 437-002-0360, effective July 2013. That Oregon OSHA rule is itself an adoption-by-reference vehicle; among the federal standards it pulls in is 29 CFR 1910.1048 Formaldehyde. You are not asked to recite a permissible exposure limit on the laws paper. You are asked to know that formaldehyde in this shop is not “whatever the manufacturer’s Instagram says.” It is city, county, state, and federal law, with Oregon OSHA’s 437-002-0360 sitting inside the Board’s rule.

OAR 817-060-0050(3) maps OSHA’s employer and employee words onto Board authorizations:

• Employer means a facility license holder, a temporary facility permit holder, a demonstration permit holder working outside of a licensed facility, a practitioner working outside of a licensed facility, or an independent contractor.
• Employee means a practitioner working in a licensed facility, an individual working under the direction of an independent contractor or facility license holder, or a demonstration permit holder working in a licensed facility.

If you hold the facility license, you are the employer for formaldehyde purposes even if you never touch the smoothing cream. If you are a barber certificate holder working inside that facility, you are the employee. An independent contractor who rents a chair is an employer under this mapping, not a bystander. A practitioner working outside a licensed facility (freelance picture) is an employer for the formaldehyde rule. Learn the two lists. The exam will swap “the barber at chair three” for “the facility license holder” and wait to see whether you still know who owes the OSHA duties.

A Bend cabinet that mixed oxidizer and alcohol

Priya holds a barber certificate in a Bend facility that also has two hair-design chairs. She keeps a gallon of alcohol-based disinfectant and a gallon of peroxide-type oxidizer on the same dispensary shelf, touching, because both are “under a gallon.” Chemically damp towels from a neighboring perm sit in an open plastic can by a space heater. The facility owner bought a keratin-style smoother and tells the barbers “that’s hair design, not your problem.” Three Division 60 misses. OAR 817-060-0020(5) required 12 inches, different shelves, or protected glass before reactive chemicals shared a cabinet. OAR 817-060-0020(4) and (8) required flammables away from ignition and chemically damp towels in an airtight metal fire-retardant container. OAR 817-060-0050 made the facility license holder the employer for formaldehyde-capable products and every in-shop practitioner an employee — “I only cut hair” does not move the bottles, the towels, or the OSHA mapping.