Happy Threads Irish Blog

In a recent survey we found that a large number of Hygienists and Therapists choose and purchase their own uniforms, a smaller number were provided with uniforms by the practice they worked in and a lucky few were able to chose their own and    have their practice pay for them.

We found that many Hygienists and Therapists require a more individual look and seek a uniform that reflects their personality and profession wishing for something more than the generic scrub top or a beautician’s tunic.

The work of Hygienists and Therapists is active and so the clothing and footwear they wear must be comfortable, through the breathability of the fabric and the fit of the garment or shoe. Work clothing should look smart and allow the individuality of the wearer to shine through.

What does your uniform say about you? does it say, ‘I am professional, I am clean and I am happy at work’.

The survey also revealed that many wish to look different from the beautycare professionals and found the high polyester content of these tunics did not offer enough breathability for the active role undertaken by Hygienists or Therapists. The traditional scrub top is a unisex product that does not flatter the female figure. Koi have bridged this gap by providing breathable uniforms specially designed for the female form.

Many practices have a strict uniform policy and there are certain advantages to this as it creates a professional environment and lets the customer know they are in safe clinical hands. Practices may wish to have different teams in different colour schemes but with a degree of continuity. An example is steel grey trousers in various styles that can be worn with Ashley Pink tops (with steel trim), Ashley Peacock tops (with steel trim), Harlow Steel/Pink combo top and the sienna steel top, thereby giving four co-ordinating options within one main colour scheme, and there is also a men’s range in steel (but not pink at present!)

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The koi scrubs are hardwearing and will last well, however like any garment they must be cared for.

The uniforms have a high cotton content, higher than most other scrubs (55% Cotton); this makes the fabric super soft.

To avoid ironing give the tunics a good shake after washing and hang to dry, alternatively tumble dry at low temperature.

Garments should be washed at 30°C where possible, badly soiled uniforms may be washed at 40°C when necessary.

Colours should be separated (lights and darks); this not only prevents colour run but also fluffing. Particular attention should be paid to navy and black, which must be washed separately.

If you wish to iron your garments, do not iron over logos or plastic labels.

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While the Pork and Cheese (P&C) are generally a friendly bunch, put them behind the wheel of a car and suddenly a self-centred, kamikaze, incompetent maniac emerges. My sister-in-law (who is Portuguese) informs me that indicators are an optional extra when purchasing a car and most P&C drivers prefer to avoid the expense. Every time you slow to check a road sign, delay for a fraction at a roundabout or hesitate at a junction, a car will inevitably undertake you on the footpath or slam on the horn (and often both), suffice to say that I have been quite successful at upsetting P&C drivers.

P&C food ranges from the excellent to the awful, the sweet ‘pastella de natas” are a little custard tart and are delicious with a strong coffee, although can be overindulged on as I discovered by devouring the remains of a box before our initial boarding. Unable to face any more I moved onto other delicacies from the Café counter such as the sausage smothered in cheese, battered and deep-fried.

They P&C signature dish is “Bacalahu’, cod that is salted and dried, apparently if cooked properly it can be nice, (still searching), the waft of this greets you in all supermarkets which have a whole section devoted to the stuff, this may explain the cod shortage in the North Atlantic. We did manage lobster one evening, the P&C waiters insisting that ‘Pinchy’ was selected from the tank, my wife was having none of this and I must admit I prefer not to focus on Pinchy’s removal from his mates into the boiling water, but the waiters were not for turning (or I suspect picked up on our apprehension) and on three separate occasions I was dragged over to the tank, and then, as if to ensure I’d made the right choice, two live lobsters were brought to the table, nevertheless Pinchy died a noble death and was appreciated.

My wife’s illness continued for a couple of days after our first attempt at flying, finally Imodium was administered which solved the problem, Imodium and Eyjafjallajökull, have any of the boffins in their lab coats thought of this?

Who is flying who isn’t, a lot of posturing going on, although I was puzzled to overhear my wife discussing the implications of Louis Walsh’s test flight going pear-shaped, and “why is he on board a BA test flight anyway?” (and why didn’t he bring Jedward?)

Currently we have the following booked and paid for,

1. Flight Lisbon – Cork Friday
2. Flight Lisbon – Dublin Saturday
3. Ferry Cherbourg – Rosslare Friday
4. Ferry Cherbourg – Rosslare Saturday
5. 24 Hour Bus Porto – Paris Thursday

Chasing refunds should be fun.

Spending the day trying to book various plane/train/boat/car options can be quite stressful; little else gets achieved (work nor sunbathing). Limiting our choice of transport options were the striking French rail drivers (the firewall would block my choice of words) compare them with the Spanish who have offered to facilitate stranded passengers in Madrid and the New Zealand public who have offered to accommodate stranded Europeans in their houses, I’ve nearly switched allegiance for next years rugby world cup.

Got a text from O2 offering 100 free texts to stranded customers , I received this once flights had been cleared to return, is this a handy way of justifying the huge phone bills run up by many of its customers.

Happythreads have been able to function during this time, with over 90% of scrubs and tunics being delivered on time, thanks to Louise, Ken, Paul and Liezl for all their efforts.

A flick onto the news and the sight of families being stuck in the US, trying to fly to Madrid, hiring a car to drive to Cherbourg (€2,000, good to see car hire companies doing their bit), following this was a piece on a 7 year old girl being pulled half dead out of rubble from the earthquake in China, how small our troubles really are. But, it’s still bloody stressful.

Anyway decision is made, stay put and hope that one of our flights pulls through. The sun has come out, swell has arrived and I have been landed with the stomach bug.

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What a better way to beat the Irish winter blues (which extended into April) than a short break to sunny Portugal! Packing was light with a focus on swimwear, sun cream, shorts and a longboard. My companion (wife) was in jolly humour having been out late the night before and went straight for the LK Bennett shop in the Airport, when I rescued her the sales assistant was handing her a receipt saying “not even 7 AM and a pair of shoes purchased” Should these airport shops not have breathalysers?

Don't take up a parking space with that!

Upon arrival we located our hire car, the meeting point was at the Ice cream kiosk in Lisbon Airport and set off in our Fiat Punto (we are nothing if not flash). My nervous passenger, ensured that there was no reckless driving, although I had to protest when a Smart Car overtook us.  Smart Cars are treated with little respect in Portugal, see what happened when a driver found a smart car taking up a full parking space!

Following two days of glorious sunshine we got worried when we heard reports of sunshine in Ireland, it’s a known fact that on the rare occasions when high pressure lingers over Ireland, southern Europe gets a deluge and sure enough it arrived. A little bit of cultural sight seeing (Sintra is amazing) and some good food kept spirits up. We also got some work done in anticipation of taking a few hours to enjoy the sunshine when we returned to Ireland. Unfortunately Abigail came down with a stomach bug on our last night and spent most of the night conversing with porcelain.

Thursday morning – airport, check in, boarding gate, wife asleep and the texts came through, informing us of the volcanic ash event. We boarded the plane a little late and thought that we would be able to get in to Dublin before the airport closed. We sat on the runway for an hour and a half being well looked after by the cabin crew and thankful that we flying with civilised Aer Lingus. Suddenly we were being ejected with very few instructions, we’re not leaving today, we don’t know when we are – go out to fend for yourselves, clearly someone had left the Ryanair customer service manual lying around.

Lost Property at Lisbon Airport

Abigail’s condition was not improving and it was going to be a dogfight to get on the next plane. I raced out to try to find the customer service counter, no AerLingus desk but a service counter operated by PortWay acting on behalf of most of the Airlines. Complete chaos, credit card details were being entered into laptops for broadband services (in Portuguese) which never materialised, panic ringing of phone numbers. A phone number for Aer Lingus gold circle was found and after a little persuasion about my lack of membership our booking was quickly changed. Then I tried to find wife who had been left picking up the longboard from oversize baggage, and located her at the lost and found section.

Flight booked for tomorrow (Friday), the sun was shining we found a fabulous gothic apart-hotel not far from the airport with a pool overlooking the city. We entered the hotel in sunshine, checked in, but by the time I reached the pool the afternoon rain was set in and continued. Flight cancelled for tomorrow (Friday) and the realisation that we were not going to make it back for the Dental Hygienists Conference in Dublin on Saturday where Abigail was due to give a lecture and Happythreads had a trade stand.

In these situations there is always a positive to be gained….to be continued…

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Clinics such as Dental Practices, Medical Clinics, Physiotherapy Centres need to be easily located on the internet (get found), for many prospective patients search engines such as Google have replaced the phone directory. Often the first impression is what you find in a Google search and your clinic may be judged on this.

Types of website

Commissioning a website design is a bit like buying a car. You need a car to get to work, do you buy that Micra today and drive to work tomorrow or do you order a customised Jaguar and take the bus for the next 6 months? In a similar manner you may get a site built on a template for a few hundred Euro that will be operational within a week or you could commission a custom built site that may cost 5 figures and take months to design.

There is the option of doing it yourself but unless you are very IT literate you may end up with a very basic website that has taken a lot of time. There are also services offering a basic web presence or mini-site such as those available through ‘mysite’ offered by Truvo. These are partly DIY and may not look like a full site. Find out how much they will cost per year as they may cost more that a full site in the long term.

I will be adding to this thread over the next few weeks, you can also see a list of website designers who have an understanding of the needs of clinics.

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Many people experience the problem of fluff on cotton rich garments such as the koi scrubs which use a soft poly-cotton fabric (55% cotton), unfortunately fluff tends to be attracted to higher quality, heavier weaves. Fluff can be removed with a lint roll (available in Ikea etc), sticky tape will do in an emergency.

Fluff should not be confused with pilling or balling; this is the formation of little balls of material forming around loose fibres, which will not be easily removed by brushing or using a lint roll (a razor can help!). Pilling can be caused by poor quality material, a loose weave or excessive abrasion. Pilling will not occour on good quality tunics and scrubs such as those by Hejco and koi.

Five top tips for reducing fluff

1. Ensure there is no tissue paper lurking around in the pockets.
2. Drying clothes in a dryer can help in de-fluffing garments.
3. Darker clothes should be washed separately.
4. Towels (especially different coloured ones) should be not be washed with cotton rich garments.
5. Check and clean the filter of washing machines and dryers regularly.

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