Tips To Streamline Your Salon Cleaning

Cleaning your salon has never been more important. To protect customers and staff from the threat of COVID-19, every salon must adopt strict cleaning schedules to make sure surfaces are regularly cleaned, disinfected and sanitised.

A common complaint from salon owners and workers is that cleaning takes up too much time between customers. This means that salon workers are working longer hours than ever before for less money.

We’ve shared some tips to help manage this in the past. These include increasing your prices to cover the extra work, and adjusting your services to make sure you’re making the most of client time.

In this guide, we’re going to look at how you can streamline your cleaning routine to make sure you’re maximising every second of the day. Here’s a quick run through of how you can maximise your time and focus on the areas that need to be cleaned the most.

1. Itemise everything in your salon. This will include all chairs, workstations, carts, mirrors, tables, sinks, etc. Don’t forget to include everything that your staff will come into contact with such as the reception desk, iPads, computers and storage room furniture.
2. Create a priority cleaning list. Everything that a client touches will need to be cleaned between customers. Things that only your staff come into contact with will be cleaned less regularly, but should still be cleaned throughout the day. You should now have a list of what needs to be cleaned between clients and what needs to be cleaned at regular intervals.
3. Stock up on cleaning supplies. These cleaning supplies should be easily accessible. Keep disinfectant spray and blue roll stations throughout your salon. This makes it much easier to spot clean as you’re going.
4. Let your clients know the procedures. When a client books an appointment, make sure they’re aware of what is expected. This can remove the risk of confrontation if a client doesn't want to use hand gel or wear a mask. Make it part of the booking process so no one is caught off guard. You should also include signage around your salon to make sure this is clear. 

Put yourself in your client’s shoes

A huge part of being COVID-19 safe is all about cleaning everything between clients. You won’t know what to clean unless you’re looking at this from your client’s perspective. Think about what they will touch and come into contact with in your salon. This will obviously depend on their treatment, but this is what their journey might look like for a cut and blowdry.

• The external door handle
• The reception desk
• The treatment chair
• The backwash unit
• Back to the treatment chair
• The reception desk
• The internal door handle

Create your cleaning plan based on the areas each client will touch. And then add in the things that you have touched. Communal areas like door handles and the reception desk should be left to one person in the salon. If the responsibility is shared, it can be difficult to keep tabs on who has cleaned it. Keep a whiteboard checklist at your reception desk so you can check off when something has been cleaned.

To avoid cleaning absolutely everything between each customer, move items to a “dirty zone” once they have been used by you. You can then avoid cleaning all of your equipment and just focus on the items you actually used. Avoid touching things unless you plan to use them, and keep everything away from the client.

If you find something really difficult to clean, think about how you can cover it or get rid of it. Fabric chairs and chairs with arms spring to mind. Anything with fabric cannot be fully disinfected, so you might need to move this out of your salon for the foreseeable. Covering expensive chairs with a disposable cover could help to cut down cleaning time. This will also stop you from ruining your gorgeous leather salon chairs with hourly sanitising spray!

Switching to single use items might be more expensive but it could help you to save money on client turnaround. Otherwise, invest in multiple sets of equipment so you can leave things in a “dirty zone” away from the clients and tackle cleaning them all at once at the end of the day.