Almost every client I have puts her hands inside my UV lamps. That’s a lot of wiping out and disinfecting the bottoms of the lamps.

Today, one of my gel-polish clients asked me what was all over the reflective plate that she rests her hands on. I explained that it’s all cured gel.

She made a face.

I said, “Yeah, I know.” Then went on to explain that, yes, I do disinfect the plates. I even periodically take a razor blade and scrape away any residue from where people rest their nails against the plates. But no matter how much I clean them, there will always be irregularities in the plate from either cured gel or pits where I nick the plate when I clean it.

I can make it “clean” and make sure it’s disinfected, but I can’t make it shiny, new, and smooth again.

I’d take the bottoms completely out, but the way the lamps sit on my desk, that would make it less likely that people would actually keep their hands inside the lamps... I already have a hard time making people understand the importance of proper, even, light exposure with the gels.

Plus, those plates are reflective, so I gotta figure that the manufacturer of the lamps made them that way for a reason. The more reflected light, the better the exposure. So maybe taking the bottom plates out isn’t such a good idea.

My big idea? Why aren’t there replaceable, disposable, foil liners with sticky backing that can be changed after each use?

I mean, they’re going to have to be cheap because they’d (ideally) be getting replaced with each client. But I can’t figure how they’d be too expensive to produce. I’m sure we can get the cost down to something in the neighborhood of arbor bands or a couple of nail forms.

I honestly am surprised I’ve never seen such a thing.

I’d get to working on it myself but I just never seem to have time to actually invent all these things I come up with. So, could someone please get these into production? I could really use a roll or two... if they come in rolls.