DIY Beauty sessions

[honeybee76]

I run a small business alongside my gift shop, with a treatment room where therapists rent the room by the hour for offering their own massage, facials etc.
I'm not a qualified therapist myself. I just set up and run the space.
But I have a large beauty device Toolkit for myself that includes the Lyma Laser, Currentbody MicroCurrent tool, LED mask, Foreo toning device and blue led device.
I have seen other salons renting out their LED devices for clients to take home.
my QUESTION is... Can I offer a session, a DIY hour beauty session, in my treatment room, allowing clients to use these tools on themselves?
And what kind of waiver, document would I need them to sign to cover myself?
I'd basically provide the tools and instructions and let them administer them on themselves.
I've googled everything to find out if this practice is allowed or if anyone offers this...or whether it's even a good idea?
I'm new to the beauty business world - so any advice v v welcome. Thanks

 

[TheDuchess]

Unfortunately you can’t rent your professional equipment out, This is because you cannot rent equipment to someone who’s not competent. You’re not a therapist so you can’t train someone to the point where they are safe.

The list of what could go wrong is enormous. You’d have no control over someone using this in circumstances where a competent therapist would not. Your equipment could get used on a child without your knowledge or someone in remission from cancer who then had cancer return and wondered if using your equipment caused this. Same thing with pregnancy , if a pregnant lady had a miscarriage you’d have no way to prove that her rental hadn’t caused harm.

In a situation where you are hiring equipment you cannot sign your rights to sue away if the hirer is negligent. In English Law they’d still be able to sue for compensation because they aren’t therapists so they are expected to be stupid, incompetent, reckless. You are the business person so the hiring public have a right to expect you to have undertaken a risk assessment and ensured that there were safeguards in place which protected your customers from their own stupidity. You’d never be able to obtain public liability insurance anyway and you’d risk jeopardising your existing insurance because your “reckless behaviour” would make you what’s called a “moral hazard” which is insurance code for someone no one wants to insure.

I’m sorry to be so bleak. I used to be a Commercial Insurance Broker so I know what’s what. Waivers aren’t acceptable in the beauty world they don’t hold up in court.

However you could offer the equipment to your therapists as part of their room renting agreement. They could pay a rate per treatment and you’d need to see proof that they had insurance to provide treatments with your machine. I had this arrangement with another therapist when I started, I used her machines when she wasn’t using them and it worked very well for both of us.

Regarding clients borrowing equipment to take home - the product needs to be a retail product intended for non professionals to use. It doesn’t sound like you have these “baby” machines, yours are the real deal.

A tip I was told by my old boss was if a client was musing about whether some business activity was legit, to just ask them to repeat their musing and add the phrase “M’Lord” at the end and imagine their words being read out in Court as their defence.

 

[TheDuchess]

Unfortunately Waiver’s aren’t legally valid in the U.K.. I am an insurance specialist in liability risk assessment.