Patent Application
20120204341
None.
Research and development of this invention and application have not been federally sponsored, and no rights are given under any Federal program.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to pedicure salon chairs, in general, and to a pedicure chair having a footbath basin to facilitate pedicure services, in particular.
2. Description of the Related Art
As has been reported, nail salon operations may give rise to un-intended health hazards. If, for example, a salon does not sterilize or disinfect its equipment at all after use, one could be at risk after a manicure or pedicure since the nail salon technician is pushing back on the cuticles in cutting off dead skin; without sterilizing or disinfecting, a salon client may be exposed to any unhealthy condition of a previous client. On the other hand, if the nail salon uses a “UV sterilizer” using ultra-violet rays, such treatments do not work effectively in killing bacteria. As such, they are not generally approved by the Federal Drug Administration for actual sterilization, though they continue to be used.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, however, there are many different steam sterilizers that the nail salon operator can chose from—ranging widely in price as well as in quality. Recognizing that the shorter the cycle of operation the better, some steam sterilizers have very fast cycles, but may cost more than most salons want to spend. A trade-off thus presents itself between quality operation and affordability with these types of sterilizers. For that reason, dry heat machines have been promoted, claimed to be able to sterilize all instruments placed inside its chambers for at least 60 minutes at 320° F. in order to obtain FDA approval.
While all this is readily understandable, it is still not unusual to find sterilization not being offered a client even when such is available. Besides the “affordability” question and the cost involved, observation has revealed an alarming tendency for the nail technician just not getting up from the salon station where treatment is accorded, and walking over to the location where the sterilizer machine sits.
One attempt to deal with this problem is described in my pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/806,680 filed Aug. 19, 2010, and entitled “NAIL SALON WORKSTATION”. There, a manicure table is described having a technician's side, an opposing client's side and a table top work surface; an exhaust motor vacuum, a hose or pipe conduit running upwardly along the table from the vacuum toward the work surface, and a controllable source of illumination at an end of the conduit adjacent to the work surface are provided, for exhausting harmful dust and noxious chemical odors generated at the workstation area. The table top work surface, additionally, is selected optically transparent along its length to allow a client not only to observe the various tools employed by the technician in performing the manicuring function, but also to visualize such items as sterilizing machines, ultraviolet gel machines, and fingernail soak bowls that may be placed on one or more shelves underlying the table top work surface. In such manner, the sterilizing machine of whatever type selected is already there at the work area itself, without any need for the technician to have to walk across the salon shop to where the sterilizer machine may be kept.
As will be recognized by those skilled in the art, the same general problem exists with respect to the use of a pedicure salon chair—where it is equally important to inquire about how files, clippers, cuticle cutters, buffers and permastone instruments are sterilized, and if they are sterilized between client uses. Noting that this is more than just rubbing instruments down with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, a need for sterilization does truly exist—especially when considered in light of a recent development in which a woman won a jury award of $3.1 million against a nail salon that gave her herpes through the use of non-sterile instruments. While this might be viewed by some as a remote possibility, most dermatologists accept the possible danger of developing nail fungus and/or bacterial infection from manicures and pedicures.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide a new and improved type of pedicure salon chair configured to allow a sterilizer machine placement to be built-right-in for a nail technician to access no matter the utensils employed.
It is an object of the present invention, also, to provide this built-in sterilizer machine placement as an alternative to the increasingly employed practice of requiring customer clients to purchase their own instruments and bringing such utilizations along with them each time their nails are to get done.
It is another object of the present invention to provide this built-in placement feature to the pedicure salon chair regardless of the type of machine to be used, and regardless of the actual configuration of the chair.
It is an object of the present invention, additionally, to provide such a pedicure salon chair whether or not the sterilizing machine is steam or dry-heat operative, with or without UV sterilization, and whether the sterilizing machine resembles a toaster oven, a small dishwasher, or whatever.
As will become clear from the following description, the present invention discloses a pedicure salon chair with its own built-in sterilizing machine placement. Recognizing that all such pedicure chairs on the market employ a footrest at its front opposite the seat portion and that almost all such chairs are provided with footbath basins for hot and cold water usage in the pedicure operations, the chair of the present invention follows the realization that beneath the footrest and forward of the footbath basin is a large, unused dead space. The sterilizing machine placement of the invention serves as a modification of those pedicure salon chairs presently available for purchase to allow the sterilizing machine to be housed there in what previously represented wasted area and space. As will be seen, a pull-out draw is there located according to the invention, into which any type of sterilizing might be utilized, be it ultra-violet, steam or dry heat.
These and other features of the present invention will be more clearly understood from a consideration of the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying Drawings, in which:
In the prior art pedicure salon chairs of
In the
In the sectional-view configuration of
While there has been described what is considered to be a preferred embodiment of the present invention, it will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art that modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the teachings herein. For at least such reason, therefore, resort should be had to the claims appended hereto for a true understanding of the scope of the invention.
