How to Clean Lash Tweezers Like a Pro — 5 Easy Steps

There are 5 simple steps to follow if you want to sanitize your eyelash tweezers effectively:

1. Washing your hands
2. Cleaning your tweezers
3. Disinfecting your tweezers
4. Rinsing and drying your tweezers
5. Storing your tweezers

In this guide, I’ll walk you through these exact steps and the tools & products you’ll need.

Cleaning vs Disinfecting vs Sterilizing

Let’s first clarify the differences between cleaning, disinfecting, and sterilizing.

• Cleaning: an action that physically removes dirt and impurities using a mechanical action. It’s usually done with plain soap and water. It will kill some germs but not all.
• Disinfecting: involves using chemicals to kill surface-level germs. This is a higher level of sanitization than cleaning but still will not kill all microorganisms.
• Sterilizing: eliminates all microbial life, including bacteria and viruses.

According to the Public Health of Ontario, Canada, tweezers are categorized as a semi-critical item.¹

This means they must be cleaned followed by high-level disinfection.

However, sterilization is not required since tweezers are not intended to penetrate the skin or sterile tissue.

How to Clean Lash Tweezers

Step 1: Wash Your Hands

Use soap and water to rob your hands and wrists for at least 30 seconds. This will ensure no cross-contaminations.

Step 2: Clean the Tweezers

Use soap and a small sponge to clean the tweezers and remove any visible soil.

Remember, this is the first sanitization step and it doesn’t mean your tweezers are disinfected or sterilized yet (more on that in the next steps)

Sometimes, you might have a little bit of adhesive that dried on your tweezers and doesn’t come off with just soap.

In such cases, you can use a little bit of acetone:

1. Soak a cotton pad with acetone.
2. Wrap the pad around your tweezers at the tip for 2 minutes.
3. Gently wipe the tweezer’s tip with the pad to remove the dried glue.
4. Move on to the next sanitization steps.

Step 3: Rinse and Dry the Tweezers

Hold your tweezers under cool tap water to rinse them. Then very gently dry them with paper towel.

Step 4: Desinfect the Tweezers

Soak your tweezers in a liquid disinfectant. For that step, you can buy a simple tweezer sterilizer tray.

There are many chemicals to choose from but the two most frequent ones used by lash artists are:

Barbicide: This disinfectant comes in a concentrated form so you’ll have to dilute it with water. Mix 2 oz of Barbicide with 32oz of cold water. With this product, you’ll need to let your tweezer soak for 20 minutes.

PreEmpt CS20: This product doesn’t require dilution. Simply pour a small amount in your tray and again, let your tweezers soak for 20 minutes.

Here’s the protocol from the manufacturer.

Because of the simplicity, I prefer to use this product at my salon.

Don’t forget the protective tweezer covers! They should aboslutlybe desinfected as well.

Step 5: Rinse and Dry Your Tweezers

Take your tweezers out of the disinfecting solution and rinse them with cold water.

Then, dry gently dry them with a paper towel and store them in a clean pouch or container.

Tools & Products

These are the supplies you’ll need which can all be easily purchased on Amazon.

• Hand soap
• Paper towel
• Gloves
• Acetone
• Barbicide or PreEmpt CS20
• Tweezer Sterilizer Tray
• Lash Tweezer Holder

Other Methods I Don’t Use

You might see other methods for sanitizing your tweezers. They are not as common and very often unnecessary, less effective, or time-consuming.

I’ll still cover them briefly below.

1. Heat Sterilization: It uses high heat and pressure. It’s typically done with a machine called an autoclave which can be costly. If your local health authority only requires disinfection, then you don’t need to go this extra mile.
2. Ultraviolet (UV) Sterilization: The light is able to penetrate microorganisms and essentially damage their DNA. But the light might not be able to reach all the tweezer’s surface. Nevertheless, it’s a great tool to store your tweezers that have already been sanitized.
3. Boiling: The heat from the boiling water kills many microorganisms. You need to dip your tweezers in boiling water for at least 30 minutes. However, I find it time-consuming and not very practical in a salon setting when compared to the easier option available.
4. Glass Bead Sterilizer: They use glass beads in a steel pot that can go up to very high temperatures (up to 300 degrees Celcius) which can kill fungi, bacteria, and viruses.² But I dislike this method because you need to insert your tweezers from the tip which means you’re not sterilizing the whole length.
5. Alcohol: You absolutely can use alcohol at concentrations of at least 70% to disinfect your tweezers. But why would you pay for that when you can use a cheaper bottle of PreEmpt CS20 that also offers sterilization?

Parting Tips

These are a few tips to make this whole process a breeze.

• Tweezers need to be disinfected between each clients.
• Use two pairs of tweezers! One for the client you’re working on, and one going through the sanitization process. That way, you always have a fresh pair to work with and it doesn’t slow you down.
• Never use a nail buffer to remove dried lash glue.
• Don’t throw away you tweezer’s protective tip! It’s important to keep it so they stay sharp.
• Don’t let your tweezers sit all night in the disinfectant solution. It can corrode them.

References

1. Public Health Ontario. Classes of Equipment and Instruments. Retrieved from https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/a/2018/at-a-glance-ipac-pss-equipment-instrument-classes.pdf?sc_lang=en (Accessed on 30 March 2022)
2. BT Lab Systems (2019). The Effectiveness of a Glass Bead Sterilizer. Retrieve from https://blog.btlabsystems.com/blog/the-effectiveness-of-a-glass-bead-sterilizer (Accessed on 30 March 2022)