This week, I’m working on an article about whether nail salon workers face increased health problems due to their profession. It’s possible that products that are safe for consumers may not be so safe for the people who use them every day. Nail technicians report health issues like headaches, respiratory illnesses, cancer and reproductive problems. Are those problems due to chemicals in the products? Ventilation in the salons? It’s an especially tricky situation given that many nail technicians are immigrants that speak little English, but the researchers and some community groups have managed to do impressive outreach that may improve salon safety for worker and customer alike. Stay tuned for that article, as well as an upcoming  Stuff Mom Never Told You episode on the subject.

Customers may not face the same long-term problems as salon workers, but there are still plenty of health and safety issues to be aware of before you take your seat in the spa. Make sure that your salon has a license to operate posted near the front of the building; each worker should have his or her own license, which denotes that they’ve received adequate training. A salon should appear clean and be animal-free; public restrooms are usually a good gauge of an establishment’s commitment to cleanliness. Once these preliminaries are out of the way, your biggest risks are the bacteria and viruses that can live in the foot spas or on the manicurist’s tools and equipment.

To ensure that you don’t end up with a foot fungus during your pedicure, find out how your salon cleans its foot spas. A good spa will scrub residue from the spa and disinfect it for 10 minutes between every client. Another option is to use a plastic bag lining each time the foot spa is used, or to frequent salons that have pipeless whirlpools, as these foot spas give bacteria fewer places to build up. Don’t shave your legs on the day of your pedicure, as even a small nick can allow entry to hundreds of bacteria. If you’ve got an open sore, bug bite or cut on your foot or your leg, cancel your appointment and reschedule for a time when your feet are completely healed.

Credo blades, or the knives that clip off dead skin, are now illegal in many states, and you should be wary of a worker who appears ready to break the rules since these devices can cause massive injury if the worker’s hands slip. But you also have to keep an eye on the other tools that the manicurist uses, so ask how those are sterilized. The ideal method of sterilization is putting them in an autoclave, which will bathe the tools with high pressure steam. Some places may not use the autoclave between every customer, but at the very least, a nail technician should completely immerse the instruments in a germicidal, bactericidal, fungicidal cleaning solution for 10 minutes before taking on another client. For tools that can’t be cleaned, such as nail files, consider bringing your own. After all, it will be hard to feel pampered when you suffer from a bacterial infection.

More on spas and nails from HowStuffWorks:
5 Spa Dangers
Top 5 Things Your Nails Say About Your Health
Are acrylic nails bad for my health?