Poorly-qualified beauticians and ‘consultants’ who offer instant skin care solutions are exploiting customers, a specialist dermatologist warned, calling for stricter controls of unhygienic salons.
Many salons licensed for trimming hair, applying mascara, or highlights, are offering such procedures as chemical peeling, Dr Ekram Allah Al Nasser, medical director of Dermacare Skin Centre, said.
He added that one will also find women in cosmetic shops with tags proclaiming that they are ‘skin care consultants’. “It takes a junior doctor 15 years to be qualified as a consultant,” he said while calling for a national body to supervise skin care therapy.
He added that many beauty salons operating in residential areas do not sterilise instruments properly and that beauticians, just like restaurant workers, need to have health checks — especially if they are offering a massage or skin care therapy for skin warts. Presently, a Hepatitis B test is necessary for barbers, beauticians and health club workers.
Earlier this year, Dubai Municipality conducted a month-long public awareness campaign to reduce risks of infection through unhygienic conditions and equipment in women’s and men’s salons. Municipality inspectors said that they had found more than 2,000 violations of various kinds in the salons during the campaign.
Mahmood Saberi
Gulf News