A pedicure chair is a type of seating primarily used in spas and nail salons. It is specifically designed and engineered to facilitate foot care, allowing a technician to wash the feet, remove dead skin, and tend to nails.
While they vary widely in appearance, all pedicure chairs have three basic elements in common:
Note: The larger chairs also have a dedicated pedestal-style base that the chair itself rests on (see pictures below), but this isn’t a universal trait.
Main Usage of Pedicure Chairs
These highly specialized equipment are abundant in spas and nail salons, although a small percentage are also used by mobile pedicure providers operating primarily out of vans.
Even if you wanted one for home use, most people don’t have enough space unless you have an enormous house, an entire room you’re not using or want to turn your garage into a private pedicure station.
That’s not to say that home users don’t have options. Of course, they do, but you rarely find pedicure chairs in most home environments. Consider these devices to be a very specific type of office equipment.
Different Types of Pedicure Chairs
Broadly speaking, there are only two basic “types” of pedicure chairs: Piped-in and Pipeless.
A piped-in chair is fully plumbed, with water flowing into the bowl from your building’s plumbing system. At first glance, you might think that these are the way to go, but the reality is that piped-in chairs aren’t as sanitary because few spas and nail salons take the time to properly clean the insides of the pipes running into and out of the chair.
That’s problematic because, after a pedicure, the water in the bowl is unsanitary and filled with dead skin, bacteria, and possibly fungus. This leads to buildups of bacteria in the piping, which can cause infections if other customers are exposed to them.
Pipeless chairs were invented in response to the enormous challenges of keeping the pipes clean.
In this rendering of the device, water is poured into the bowl manually (or from a dedicated water tank) for each customer and then taken away to be disposed of. Since the salon or spa only has to deal with keeping the bowl clean, it’s a much easier task, and the net result is a much safer, more sanitary environment.
Even though piped-in chairs still exist, they have slowly and steadily been discontinued in preference for pipeless chairs, which are safer and easier to clean and maintain.
Technically, you could say that chairs designed for mobile use represent a third type of pedicure chair. These are typically collapsible, so they can be carried to different locations (retirement communities, assisted living centers, and the like). Still, in practice, they’re smaller, more easily moved variants of pipeless chairs, so again, broadly speaking, our classification above holds.
With only two types of chairs to choose from, one being decidedly out of favor, you might think there’s not much choice or variation in the world of pedicure chairs. Nothing could be further from the truth! There is a dizzying array of possible features and feature combinations on offer, and this is where you see the biggest variance.
So, what features can you expect to find on today’s pedicure chairs? They include things like:
And more!
In addition to those things, pedicure chairs come in various footprint sizes. If you want to maximize the number of chairs you can comfortably fit into a small shop space, you could gravitate toward chairs with the smallest possible footprint. If you’ve got more space, you can get larger, more elaborate chairs and spread things out a little, or use a combination of both.
Some companies even make brightly colored, kid-sized pedicure chairs with DVD players so your children can enjoy a pedicure while you’re getting yours. And, of course, pedicure chairs come in an unbelievable number of upholstery options, so you’re sure to be able to find one that perfectly fits your needs and meshes seamlessly with your shop’s décor.
Pictures of Pedicure Chairs
Here are some pictures of some of the pedicure chairs on the market today:
Origin and History of Pedicure Chairs
There are ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs showing Pharos and members of the Royal Court getting pedicures, so getting one dates back literally thousands of years.
The idea of a highly specialized chair designed to facilitate a pedicure is much more recent. It dates back to the 1980s and can be traced to a Russian immigrant named John Meyerovich, who designed the modern pedicure chair in his garage.
Salons were still a niche business in the 1980s, but they became mainstream in the 2000s, and the industry experienced tremendous growth. As that happened, the number of companies offering pedicure chairs and the number of styles and options available exploded.
Some Current Brands of Pedicure Chairs
Confused yet? A staggering number of pedicure chairs are on the market today, offered by various manufacturers. In our view, here are some of the best to consider. These companies offer a whole range of products, and all are worth taking a closer look at:
