On site: service and safety

Everything before this lesson happens in your control: your kit, your prices, your calendar. Then you knock on a stranger's door, and the environment becomes half theirs. Mobile pros who last treat the first three minutes on site as a system, the same way they treat color timing. Here is the system.

The arrival routine

Text when you are five minutes out; it lets the client put the dog in the bedroom and clear the counter. Park where you will not be blocked in, note the address as you lock the car, and carry everything in one trip if you can, two cases, never three. At the door: greet, confirm the service and the plan, and ask the two questions before your kit opens. "Where's the best light and an outlet?" and "Any allergies or product sensitivities I should know about, anything new since we last talked?" New matters. People develop dye sensitivities between visits.

Choosing the setup spot: a kitchen or dining chair by a window for cuts and color, hard flooring over carpet for nails, bathroom sinks only when the shampoo genuinely needs one, and an outlet check before the blow dryer comes out of the bag. Bring your own everything: towel bag, cape, mat, trash bag, and a small folding mirror. You are a self-contained unit that borrows only light, water, and electricity.

The sanitation standard

This is the part your license actually hangs on, because state boards write detailed rules on implements, and inspectors and complaints do not care that your salon has wheels. The standard pattern: multi-use metal and tooling implements disinfected between every client with an EPA-registered hospital-grade disinfectant used at full contact time, single-use items (files, buffers, toe separators, wax applicators, mascara wands) used once and thrown away, fresh linens and towels for every client, and double-dipping into wax or product jars never happening at all. One porcupine of a sentence in a course is worth less than one habit: the sanitize-and-reset routine happens between clients, at the client's sink, before you pack.

Keep a sanitation log on paper or in your phone, dates and cycles for your implements and disinfectant solutions. If a board complaint ever lands, the log is your defense. If a client ever asks, the log is your marketing.

Allergies, consent, and the patch test

Every new client fills in the intake card from the legal setup lesson, and every color, waxing, or lash client gets a patch test before first application, 24 to 48 hours ahead, documented. Yes, it delays the first booking by a day. It also prevents the reaction that ends the client relationship, triggers an insurance claim, or reaches the board. Reactions to hair dye are the classic beauty-industry liability case, and the professional standard is not a workaround, it is the patch test plus the record.

Working alone in homes you don't know

Most appointments are ordinary people who want their hair done. A few are not, and you will not always get a warning, so build the practices that cost nothing and remove most of the risk. For first-time clients: take payment at booking or on arrival, not after. Share the address and appointment window with one person, a partner, a friend, or your booking app's location-sharing feature, as a standing habit. Have a leaving script ready:

"I've got another appointment across town, so I need to pack up."

No explanation owed, no negotiation. If anything about a location, a client, or a situation feels wrong, leave before the kit opens. The 90 dollars is never the point.

The visit ends the way the whole business is built to end: prebooked, before you pack the kit. That close is a skill with a script, and it earns its own careful treatment later in this course. For now, end every visit with the next one on the calendar.