Saw a barber in Seattle using a simple trick to keep his station clean

I was in a shop up in the Capitol Hill area and noticed the barber had a small, clear plastic tub on his station. He'd drop his used combs and guards in it, then pour some blue barbicide over them at the end of the hour. He said it cut his clean-up time down by a lot because he wasn't running to the sink after each cut. It looked like a basic food storage container, maybe a quart size. Has anyone else tried something like this to keep things moving during a busy day?

4 comments

4 Comments

daniel3911mo ago

Yeah, that tub trick is standard in a lot of shops now. We keep a small bin with a lid filled with barbicide at each station. You drop your dirty tools right in, so they're soaking while you work on the next client. It's the only way to actually meet the required contact time for disinfection without stopping everything.

ryanj101mo ago

Seems like a solution in search of a problem. Most guys just wipe their gear down between clients, it takes ten seconds. That whole setup sounds more complicated than just cleaning as you go.

piper_garcia231mo ago

Oh man, that's actually a sanitation thing. The blue stuff is disinfectant, not just for cleaning. You're supposed to fully soak tools for the full time to kill germs, not just wipe them.

finley_smith14d ago

I used to just wipe my tools down too but after watching a health inspector lose it on a shop, I convinced my boss to switch to the soak bins. Way easier once you get the rhythm of dropping dirty stuff in and pulling clean stuff out, plus you don't have to stress about timing.