PPE for Detailing: Protecting Your Long-Term Health

Here’s a question worth answering honestly: do you wear a mask when you’re machine polishing?

It’s not the most glamorous corner of detailing, but personal protective equipment (PPE) is one of the things that separates a long career from a short one – and it’s a drum we’ll happily keep banging.

The dust you can’t see

As your abrasive compound breaks down and the lubricants dry out, you’re producing airborne dust particles – and you’re breathing them in. It’s easy to dismiss, because you can’t feel the damage happening. But the toxicology literature is blunt about chronic aluminium oxide inhalation – aluminium oxide being a common polishing abrasive: it can cause pneumoconiosis, a dust disease of the lungs, with a persistent cough, breathlessness on exertion, visible changes on a chest X-ray and reduced lung function, and in severe cases it can prove fatal.

Not the cheeriest read – but that’s the point. A decent FFP-rated dust mask is a very small investment against your long-term health. And if you’re using a tight-fitting mask, it’s worth knowing that under COSHH your RPE should be both adequate and suitable for the task, and tight-fitting respirators need a face-fit test to seal properly – a mask that leaks around the edges isn’t doing the job you think it is.

What about when spraying wheel acid? Or tar remover? Or any of the other chemicals designed to strip off most of the things you naturally have in or on your body? Surely a simple FFP rated facemask is a worthwhile investment for your own long-term health…?

It’s not just dust

Then there’s everything you spray. Wheel acid, tar remover and plenty of other products are specifically designed to strip off exactly the sort of things you naturally have in and on your body – so consider what they’re doing to your lungs, skin and eyes. It’s genuinely concerning how many photos and videos online – manufacturer promo shots included – show people wearing no protection at all, spraying one chemical over another, next to a row of unlabelled bottles. Sexy topic or not, getting this right is the difference between a sustainable business and one cut short by avoidable health problems.

Know your chemicals: labels and SDS

Before you start any job, make sure you’re familiar with the chemicals you’ll be using. Ideally you’d consult the manufacturer’s Safety Data Sheet (SDS) the first time you use a product, but that isn’t always to hand – which is where the product label earns its keep.

Under the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) rules, a product has to carry enough information for everyday use: usage directions, the PPE you need, and basic first-aid measures. Together they tell you what precautions to take, and whether you need gloves, eye protection, a mask, or all three.

Anyone using a potentially hazardous product should have access to its SDS and keep it with them, or have it digitally to hand – they hold far more than the label can, and you never need that information until you really need it. Many will state the basic PPE for normal use, but it’s worth digging deeper for the situational stuff: working inside a unit rather than outside in fresh air, for instance, changes everything about those “always use in a well-ventilated space” clauses.

As a wise man once put it: “if you can smell it, it’s already in you.” How often have you caught a lungful of tar remover without thinking twice?

Labels are for other people

Here’s a philosophy worth adopting: the Safety Data Sheet is there to give you information about the product you’re using; the product label is there to give other people the information they need to help you if something goes wrong while you’re using it. If you’ve a shelf or a van full of unlabelled decant bottles, nobody can do that for you in an emergency.

SDS also help you identify what you’re actually dealing with. Where relevant, the chemical-properties section gives the pH of the product as supplied, which in turn tells you a lot about whether it’s safe on a given surface.

The more you know about your products, the better your decisions – less guesswork, better efficiency of both time and product, and a proper understanding of why you’d use X to remove Y from Z, all while reducing the potential to harm the surface or yourself.

Make it second nature

Health and safety isn’t the reason anyone gets into detailing, but it’s one of the reasons people stay in it. Building good habits early – the right PPE, familiarity with your chemicals, labelled bottles – costs almost nothing and protects everything. It’s exactly why every one of our Career Development courses includes dedicated Health & Safety sections. For more on the chemical side, our guides to pH in detailing and choosing detailing products are worth a read.