The WELL Building Standard is a health-focused building performance system that evaluates indoor environments specifically for their impact on human health and wellbeing. Unlike LEED, which addresses broad environmental sustainability, WELL concentrates exclusively on how buildings affect the people inside them. WELL's Air concept includes requirements directly applicable to salon environments: ventilation effectiveness exceeding ASHRAE 62.1 by 30 percent, MERV 13 minimum filtration, volatile organic compound limits for interior materials and furnishings, formaldehyde limits below 27 parts per billion, continuous air quality monitoring with display, and air filtration for both particulate and gaseous pollutants. WELL v2 uses a points-based system where projects earn points across ten concepts including Air, Water, Light, Thermal Comfort, and Mind. The Air concept contains the most salon-relevant requirements, with preconditions that must be met and optimizations that earn additional points. For salons, WELL provides the most comprehensive health-focused framework for indoor air quality management, addressing ventilation adequacy, chemical source control, filtration performance, and monitoring verification as an integrated system.
Many salons promote themselves as healthy, clean, or wellness-focused environments without any objective standard defining what these terms mean in the context of indoor air quality. A salon may describe itself as a wellness destination while its ventilation provides half the outdoor air ASHRAE recommends and its interior finishes emit formaldehyde at levels exceeding health guidelines.
The gap between marketing claims and environmental reality undermines trust with increasingly informed consumers who recognize that clean aesthetics do not necessarily mean clean air. Visible cleanliness addresses only what can be seen and touched, while the chemical vapors, fine particles, and inadequate ventilation that most affect health are invisible.
The WELL Building Standard fills this gap by providing a rigorous, evidence-based framework for evaluating how well a building supports human health. Every WELL requirement references peer-reviewed health research establishing the relationship between the environmental parameter and health outcomes. This evidence base transforms vague wellness claims into measurable, verifiable conditions that either meet or fall short of health-protective thresholds.
For salon operators genuinely committed to staff and client health, WELL provides both the roadmap for creating a healthier environment and the credibility of third-party verification. For clients seeking environments that protect their health during salon visits, WELL status provides assurance that goes beyond marketing language.
WELL v2 Air Preconditions require compliance with ASHRAE Standard 62.1 for ventilation, MERV 13 or higher filtration, smoking and combustion management, and fundamental air quality testing or monitoring. These preconditions represent mandatory requirements that must be met for any level of WELL achievement.
WELL Air Optimizations include enhanced ventilation (30 percent above ASHRAE 62.1), increased filtration (MERV 14 or higher), activated carbon filtration for gaseous pollutants, air quality monitoring and display, source control through low-emitting material requirements, and microbe and mold control through humidity management and UV treatment.
ASHRAE Standard 62.1 serves as the baseline ventilation standard referenced by WELL. WELL's enhanced ventilation requirement builds upon this baseline to provide additional health protection.
WHO indoor air quality guidelines inform several WELL thresholds, particularly for formaldehyde, PM2.5, and ozone, reflecting the most current health research on the effects of these contaminants.
The EPA's guidelines for indoor air quality in commercial buildings align with WELL's approach of addressing ventilation, filtration, source control, and monitoring as complementary strategies.
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Evaluate your salon against WELL Air preconditions as a screening assessment. Does your ventilation meet ASHRAE 62.1 minimums? Test with a CO2 monitor: readings consistently above 1,000 ppm suggest non-compliance. Is your filtration MERV 13 or higher? Check the MERV rating printed on your current filters. Do you have any form of continuous air quality monitoring? Even a simple consumer CO2 monitor partially addresses this requirement. If your salon fails any of these three basic checks, it does not meet WELL precondition requirements and has clear improvement priorities.
Step 1: Meet WELL Air Preconditions
Before pursuing optimizations, ensure your salon meets all WELL Air preconditions. Verify ventilation compliance with ASHRAE 62.1 through CO2 monitoring during peak occupancy. Install MERV 13 or higher filters in your HVAC system. Implement a no-smoking policy for the entire building including within 25 feet of all entrances. Conduct baseline air quality testing for formaldehyde (must be below 27 ppb), total VOC (below 500 micrograms per cubic meter), CO (below 9 ppm), PM2.5 (below 15 micrograms per cubic meter), and ozone (below 51 ppb). These preconditions establish the minimum health-protective conditions that every occupied space should maintain.
Step 2: Enhance Ventilation Beyond Minimums
WELL awards points for ventilation rates 30 percent or more above ASHRAE 62.1 requirements. For a salon requiring 20 CFM per person under ASHRAE 62.1, the WELL enhanced level is at least 26 CFM per person. Install energy recovery ventilation to offset the energy cost of increased outdoor air. Use demand-controlled ventilation with CO2 sensors to optimize the enhanced rate based on actual occupancy. Verify the enhanced rate through continuous CO2 monitoring; at 26 CFM per person, peak CO2 should typically remain below 650-700 ppm during normal occupancy.
Step 3: Address Gaseous Pollutant Filtration
WELL includes provisions for air cleaning that addresses gaseous pollutants, not just particles. Standard MERV filters do not capture chemical vapors including VOCs, ammonia, and formaldehyde. Install activated carbon filtration stages in your HVAC system or deploy standalone activated carbon air cleaners near chemical service stations. Select carbon media appropriate for the specific chemicals in your salon environment. For salons performing smoothing treatments, formaldehyde-specific impregnated carbon media provides targeted removal. This gaseous filtration addresses the contaminant category most relevant to salon environments that particulate-only filtration misses.
Step 4: Control Material Emissions
WELL's material emission requirements limit VOC content in paints, coatings, adhesives, sealants, flooring, insulation, and furniture. When replacing or adding any interior element, specify products meeting WELL emission limits. Select furniture with GREENGUARD Gold or equivalent emission testing documentation. Choose flooring meeting FloorScore or equivalent low-emission standards. Specify composite wood products with no-added-urea-formaldehyde binders. These material selections reduce the chemical baseline in your salon, allowing your ventilation and filtration to focus on managing the chemicals from salon services rather than from the building itself.
Step 5: Implement Comprehensive Air Quality Monitoring
WELL requires continuous monitoring of at least CO2 and one additional parameter such as TVOC or PM2.5, with data accessible to building occupants. Install permanent monitoring for CO2, TVOC, and PM2.5 at minimum, with displays visible to both staff and clients. Configure data logging for historical trend analysis. Set alert thresholds linked to WELL-specified concentration limits. Display real-time readings in a format accessible to non-technical viewers, using color-coded indicators that communicate conditions at a glance.
Step 6: Manage Humidity and Biological Contamination
WELL addresses moisture management and biological contamination control as components of healthy indoor air. Maintain relative humidity between 30-60 percent year-round. Install UV-C germicidal irradiation in HVAC air handling units to prevent mold and bacterial colonization on cooling coils and drain pans. Inspect HVAC components regularly for biological growth. Address any water intrusion or condensation issues promptly. These measures prevent the musty odors and biological aerosols that degraded HVAC maintenance introduces into the indoor air.
WELL and LEED address indoor air quality with different emphases and scopes. LEED is a comprehensive sustainability program covering energy, water, materials, site selection, and indoor environmental quality, with air quality as one component among many. WELL focuses exclusively on human health, with air quality as its most extensive concept. For salon operators primarily concerned with protecting staff and client health, WELL provides more detailed and stringent air quality requirements than LEED. WELL specifies concentration limits for specific contaminants, requires ongoing monitoring rather than just initial testing, and addresses gaseous pollutant filtration that LEED does not explicitly require. WELL's requirements for a salon would produce a more comprehensively managed indoor air environment than LEED's requirements alone. However, LEED has broader name recognition among the general public, potentially providing greater marketing value. Some projects pursue both LEED and WELL to address sustainability and health comprehensively.
Formal WELL participation involves registration fees, performance testing, and documentation that add $5,000-15,000 or more to project costs, which may be prohibitive for small independent operators. However, the health benefits of WELL-compliant conditions do not require formal program participation. Any salon can implement WELL Air requirements independently by meeting the ventilation, filtration, monitoring, and material emission specifications described in the publicly available WELL standard. The improvements themselves, enhanced ventilation, better filtration, continuous monitoring, and low-emitting materials, cost the same whether pursued for formal WELL status or as independent health improvements. For small salons, implementing WELL principles without formal enrollment provides the health benefits at a fraction of the total cost.
The most challenging WELL Air requirements for salon environments are typically the formaldehyde concentration limit of 27 ppb, which may be difficult to maintain during smoothing treatments regardless of ventilation, and the enhanced ventilation requirement of 30 percent above ASHRAE 62.1, which requires either HVAC capacity above what was originally installed or energy recovery ventilation to make the increased outdoor air affordable. The gaseous pollutant filtration requirement is technically straightforward using activated carbon but adds ongoing media replacement cost. The low-emitting materials requirements may conflict with salon aesthetic preferences if specific materials that meet emission limits are not available in desired colors, patterns, or styles. The monitoring and display requirements are the most affordable and straightforward to implement, requiring only consumer-grade sensor equipment and visible placement.
The WELL Building Standard provides the most rigorous health-focused framework for managing salon air quality. Start your assessment with our free hygiene assessment tool.
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