If you run a salon, a barbershop or a spa in the UAE, water is doing more jobs in your premises than in almost any other kind of business: rinsing colour at the basin, filling steamers and towel cabinets, running through a water heater all day, and being poured into a glass or a cup for every client who sits down. Each of those jobs is affected by what the supply carries by the time it reaches your unit, and each has a different answer. This article goes through them one at a time, says what filtration can and cannot change, and is careful about what it does not claim.
One thing first, because the beauty industry is full of overstatement on this subject. Everything below is about the look and feel of hair after a rinse, the condition of your equipment and the experience of your clients. None of it is a claim about anybody’s health. If a client asks about a scalp or skin condition, the right answer is that it is a matter for their doctor.
What the water brings with it
UAE tap water is desalinated, and it leaves the plant treated to a drinking standard. Chlorine is added to protect it on the way. Between the mains and your basin it then passes through the building’s storage tank and pipework, which in an older building or a busy mall can add sediment and rust, and as it is heated and left to dry it forms scale on whatever it touches. So by the time it reaches a salon there are three things worth thinking about: chlorine, scale and whatever the tank and pipes added.
At the basin: chlorine and colour
Chlorine is a bleaching agent at high concentrations, and even at tap levels colourists pay attention to it. It is one of several factors that can leave hair feeling rough or dry after a rinse and that can contribute to a fresh colour fading or shifting tone sooner than expected. Product choice, heat styling, sun and the client’s own routine all play a part too, so chlorine is not the whole story — but it is the one factor that is present at every single rinse in your premises.
Carbon is the material that removes chlorine from water. The question for a salon is where to put it, and there are two realistic places.
- At the point of use. Filters designed for shower outlets exist and work on chlorine, but backwash basins use hose sprays and mixer fittings that do not always accept them. Whether a point-of-use filter fits your basins is something to check fitting by fitting rather than assume. We explain what shower-type filters genuinely do in do shower filters work.
- On the incoming supply to the unit. A carbon system fitted where the water enters your premises treats every basin, sink and appliance at once. It is the more complete answer for a salon with several basins, and it is a commercial installation that has to be sized to your water use and approved by your landlord or mall management.
Scale: fittings, heaters and steamers
Scale is the less glamorous problem and often the more expensive one. It forms wherever water is heated or dries, and a salon heats and dries water constantly.
- Basin sprays and taps lose flow as scale narrows the outlets, and pick up white marks that look poorly kept in a premises where appearance is the product.
- The water heater runs most of the day. Scale on its element acts as insulation, so it works harder and fails sooner.
- Facial steamers, towel cabinets and hair steamers boil water continuously and scale up quickly. Their manufacturers usually specify the water they want, and it is worth following.
Carbon does not prevent scale; that is the job of a softener, which is a different piece of equipment. Whether a softener is worth fitting depends on the size of the premises and how much hot water you use, and for a small salon regular descaling may be the more sensible choice. Our article on scale and appliances sets out how that decision usually goes. For small steamers, many owners simply use bought demineralised water as the manual suggests.
What goes in the client’s glass
This is the part most salons get wrong without noticing. A client in the chair for three hours for colour will be offered water, tea or coffee more than once, and what arrives says something about the business.
Most salons rely on small plastic bottles or a delivered 5-gallon cooler. Both work. Both mean storage in a premises where space is tight, deliveries to receive, a stack of plastic in the back, and the occasional afternoon when the last bottle has gone. A plumbed-in machine connected to the supply gives filtered water on tap without any of that, and the better ones give hot water for tea and chilled water for summer as well. We compare the two arrangements honestly in water coolers versus plumbed-in systems; the same reasoning applies to a salon’s back bar.
For spas and higher-end salons that want to serve sparkling water to clients, our commercial Fizzy and Aqua Bar machines produce it on tap. That is a hospitality decision rather than a necessity, and it suits premises where the client experience is a large part of what they are paying for. You can see the range in our shop.
Filtered water also makes a noticeable difference to coffee, partly because of chlorine taste and partly because scale shortens the life of the machine.
What a salon needs to provide
- Permission. Anything that connects to the building’s supply needs your landlord’s or mall management’s agreement. Ask before you plan.
- Space. A drinking-water machine needs a spot near a water supply and a socket. Treating the incoming supply needs space where the water enters the unit.
- A maintenance routine. Every filter has cartridges or media that need replacing on schedule. In a busy salon the schedule is shorter than at home, because more water passes through it.
Questions we are asked
Will filtered water make my clients’ hair healthier?
We do not make that claim, and we would be wary of anyone who does. What removing chlorine can change is how hair feels after a rinse and one of the factors affecting how colour holds. That is a cosmetic difference, and it is the honest limit of what to promise.
Do I need a softener as well as a filter?
Not necessarily. A filter handles chlorine; a softener handles scale. Many salons need only the first, and descale their equipment on a routine.
Can you fit something in a mall unit?
Often, yes, with the mall’s approval. It depends on where the supply enters and what the mall allows, which is why we look first.
The short version
Chlorine affects the rinse, scale affects your equipment, and what goes in the client’s glass affects how the visit feels. They are three separate jobs with three separate answers. If you would like us to look at your premises and tell you honestly which of them is worth doing, book a free site visit or message us on WhatsApp at +971 54 583 7959.