Capes, Neck Strips and Station Basics

The station consumables are the least interesting purchase a stylist makes and the one that most visibly separates a professional setup from an improvised one. A client notices a cape that clings, a neck strip that scratches, and a station that has run out of something halfway through their service.

Capes by service

A cutting cape is lightweight and slippery so hair slides off rather than clinging, usually nylon or polyester with a snap or velcro closure. A chemical cape is heavier and waterproof, because color and relaxer will go through a cutting cape and onto clothing, and a ruined shirt costs more than the cape did. A shampoo cape is shorter and fully waterproof for the bowl. Buying one cape to do all three jobs is the compromise that eventually produces a complaint.

Neck strips are not optional

A neck strip sits between the cape and the client's skin, and it does two things: it keeps cut hair from working down the collar, and it means the cape is not touching bare skin from one client to the next. That second point is a sanitation requirement in most professional settings, not a nicety. Disposable paper strips are the standard; a folded towel is the alternative and needs laundering between every client.

Sanitation between clients

Capes should be laundered regularly and immediately if anything gets on them, and hung to dry rather than folded damp. Combs, clips and shears get cleaned of hair, washed and disinfected between clients with a product rated for the job, and left in contact with the disinfectant for the time the label states rather than dipped and wiped. Anything porous, like a file or a buffer, is single-client and gets thrown out. Michigan licensing rules set the standards you actually have to meet, and they are worth reading rather than assuming.

What to keep restocked

Neck strips, disposable gloves in the sizes you use, cotton, foils if you color, applicator bottles and brushes, spray bottles, towels, and a disinfectant solution. These are the items that run out mid-week rather than mid-month, and they are also the cheapest to hold a surplus of. A stylist who has to stop a service to hunt for gloves has lost more than the gloves cost.

Buying for a station

Capes are worth buying more than one of, so a chemical service does not have to wait for the cutting cape to be free and so there is a spare when one is in the wash. Towels the same, in quantity, since a station runs through them faster than expected. All four Kelly Beauty stores carry capes, neck strips, gloves, towels, applicator bottles and station supplies alongside the tools, and the professional lines are in the same aisles as the retail ones.