Beauty Tools & Accessories
Buy and sell beauty tools and accessories in Panama.
Barbers moving up a model and manicurists who work from home in San Miguelito or La Chorrera are the people most likely to have good kit to pass on: cordless clippers and trimmers, gel lamps and electric nail files that earned their keep before being replaced. Alongside them sit the tools people use on themselves rather than on clients, such as make-up brushes, eyelash curlers and lit mirrors. New or pre-owned, what decides a second-hand one is how it runs and how clean it arrives, not a seal.
Clippers, trimmers and shavers:
the barber’s three machines do different jobs. A clipper takes hair down to length with a guard clipped on, a trimmer has a narrow, fine blade for outlines, necklines and beards, and a foil shaver finishes a skin fade or a shaved head. Inside a clipper, the motor sets its character. Rotary motors, like the one in Wahl’s Magic Clip, cope with most hair and run well off a battery. Magnetic motors, as in the corded Wahl Senior, are fast and suit short cuts and fades. Pivot motors have the torque to push through thick, wet or curly hair. For tidying up at home a personal kit with its guards is plenty, and a professional machine from Wahl, Andis or BaByliss Pro only pays for itself once you are cutting several heads a week.
Make-up brushes, nail lamps and the smaller tools:
on the make-up side, the tools outlast whatever goes on with them. Synthetic brushes are the ones for liquid foundation and creams, because they do not soak them up; natural-hair brushes pick up and spread powder better. A gel nail lamp is judged by its LEDs and its timer, not by the wattage printed on the box, which on cheap lamps is often inflated. The polish itself belongs in hand and nail care, foundations and palettes in make-up, and dryers, straighteners and curling wands under hair styling tools. An eyelash curler whose rubber pad has hardened or split pinches lashes instead of curving them: the pad can be replaced, a bent frame cannot.
A barber’s cordless clipper against a home kit:
a professional cordless clipper of the kind barbers keep on the station costs around $120 to $160 new in Panama, while a personal trimming kit starts at about $25. On a used professional machine, the price follows the parts that are not cheap to swap, the motor and the battery. A dull blade can be replaced; a battery that gives out halfway through the afternoon is a bigger repair, and a clipper that has done full days in a barbershop is worth less than the same model used at home on one head.
Checking a used clipper and spotting a copy:
switch it on, and cut with it if you can. The motor should hold its note when it meets hair rather than bogging down. Many barbers zero-gap their blades, setting the cutting blade almost level with the comb blade for a closer finish that also nicks more easily, so ask, and look at the blade from the side with the lever at its shortest setting. On a copied Wahl taper clipper the top blade often sits past the bottom one at that setting, the body feels lighter than it should and the motor stalls easily. Ask how long the battery lasts from a full charge, and check that the charging stand and the guards come with it, with no snapped clips. Switch a nail lamp on and look for dead LEDs. Brushes should arrive washed and dry, with no bristles coming away when you tug and no loose ferrules. Used sponges and mascara wands are not something to take from anyone.
Photos and details for a used clipper or nail lamp:
a side shot of the blade at its closest setting answers more than any description, along with the model plate, any date code engraved on the body and every guard laid out in a row. Say whether the blade has been zero-gapped, replaced or sharpened, whether the machine worked in a shop or at home, and how long a full charge lasts. A short video of it running, or of a lamp with every LED lit, saves a string of messages. A barber coming in from Chitré to try a clipper will want to hear it run off the battery rather than the cable, so leave it charging the night before.