Facing growing concerns over issues that affect both personal and community health, more and more manicurists are practicing strict, precautionary hygienic routines in their salons. Backscratchers sees this responsiveness as a tribute to today’s professionals and a reflection of the high caliber care you provide on a consistent basis through your own services.

The steps you take to protect your clientele and yourself from infection and cross-contamination should never interfere with your ability to deliver quality service. Often, though, these precautions seem to work against you.

Hygienic Elegance is a practical, pleasant-smelling lotion wash manufactured exclusively for health care professionals. Hygienic Elegance contains seven percent PCMX — the highest concentration of this ingredient in any medicated lotion wash. The proven antiseptic strength PCMX provides can mean an extra level of confidence in your salon.

Best of all, the skin-conditioning ingredients found in Hygienic Elegance also help to moisturize and condition skin, providing extra protection against the brutal effects of frequent washings. “We believe that the combination of ingredients found in Hygienic Elegance offers the best alternative toward establishing regular precautionary hygienic procedures in your salon,” stated Mike Megna of Backscratchers.

The active antiseptic ingredient in Hygienic Elegance is PCMX — parachlorometaxylenol — a product available on the European pharmaceutical market since the early 1900s. PCMX served as the official disinfectant of the British Armed Forces for many years, and just after World War II it was introduced in the United States as an ingredient in a variety of skin antiseptics.

Since its introduction here, the antimicrobial properties of PCMX and the characteristics it affords to products in which it is used have been widely researched and well documented, according to Backscratchers.

In two studies in 1976, PCMX was cited as having more antimicrobial activity than phenol, and was reported to retain activity even at low pH. Further testing has demonstrated that in varying concentrations, PCMX proves to be effective against every vegetative microorganism tested to date. Fungi, gram positive bacteria and gram negative bacteria are all controlled.

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