Single-use items in nail services (such as wooden sticks and emery boards) should be:

Single-use (porous) nail items such as wooden/orangewood sticks, emery boards, and buffers cannot be properly cleaned and disinfected, so they must be discarded after one client (or given to that client for personal use). Reusing them risks transferring pathogens. Only nonporous, cleanable implements (metal tools) may be disinfected and reused. Correctly classifying nail items as single-use versus reusable, and discarding the porous ones, is a fundamental nail-service infection-control rule consistently tested on the exam.