When I started cleaning up my beauty products and switching to products made with more natural, safer ingredients, I knew that meant I’d be switching ALL of my beauty products including my nail polish. So the hunt to find non-toxic polish began! To start, I want to clarify that no nail polish is truly non-toxic. Some are much safer than others (like the water-based ones), but all nail polish, in my opinion, should be used in moderation. In part two of this blog post, I reviewed the best non-toxic brands that I found, so if you’d like to skip straight to the brand reviews, see that post here.
Jump to:
– Do nail polish ingredients really matter?
– Types of non-toxic nail polish
– Ingredient evaluation with EWG.org
The good news is that there are definitely some great “non-toxic” nail polishes available on the market! So whether you use nail polish frequently or not, this blog post will provide valuable information for everyone. The most important thing is to reduce the overall load of toxins in your body, rather than strive for perfection.
For me personally, choosing to do “beauty in moderation” meant no longer painting my fingernails as it no longer felt worth it (except maybe for special occasions). I don’t mind the look of natural, well-groomed fingernails anyway! However, I love having painted toes, especially in the summer!
Do nail polish ingredients really matter? Here’s what the research says.
Now I know you may be wondering- do the ingredients in nail polish really matter, considering you may perceive the nail to be less absorptive than your skin? The answer is yes! This is because most nail polishes contain solvents, which actually make the nail more permeable (more capable of absorbing ingredients in the polish). Not to mention that some of the polish ends up on your cuticles and surrounding skin, in addition to the toxic fumes the nail polish creates. You also have to consider that nail polish sits on the nail for weeks at a time, which begs the question of what quantity of these ingredients are being absorbed through the nail?
While I was researching nail polish ingredients, I found this article, which was a great summary of some of the risks associated with common nail polish ingredients such as hormone disruption, carcinogenic effects, free radical production leading to cell damage, inflammation, respiratory harm, thyroid dysfunction, damage to a growing fetus, neurotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, and more. But this article also pointed out a research study that helps to answer the question of whether the ingredients in nail polish actually find their way into our bodies. This study was conducted to determine how the use of nail polish impacted exposure to triphenyl phosphate (TPHP), a common nail polish ingredient. The study subjects applied nail polish containing 0.97% TPHP by weight, and provided urine samples before and after the application of the nail polish. The results of the urine tests showed that “diphenyl phosphate (DPHP), a byproduct of TPHP metabolism, increased by nearly seven-fold 10–14 hours after fingernail painting”. In other words, the ingredients in nail polish are certainly being absorbed.
The researchers also wanted to determine whether this increase of DPHP was a result of dermal (skin) exposure or if it was from inhalation of the chemical. Believe it or not, their results showed that the increase was mainly because of dermal absorption! They asked ten study participants to paint fingernails on two separate occasions, one time being their own fingernails and one where they painted fake nails that were adhered to gloves. After testing their urine on these two different occasions, the results showed “Urinary DPHP was significantly diminished when wearing gloves, suggesting that the primary exposure route is dermal. Our results indicate that nail polish may be a significant source of short-term TPHP exposure and a source of chronic exposure for frequent users or those occupationally exposed.” If the primary route of exposure was the inhalation of the nail polish during use, the results would have shown a comparable level of DPHP in the urine each time the nail polish was used, rather than showing a significantly higher level when the polish was applied directly on their own fingernails.
“…diphenyl phosphate (DPHP), a byproduct of TPHP metabolism, increased by nearly seven-fold 10–14 hours after fingernail painting”.
Ali Le Vere, B.S., B.S. – Senior Researcher- GreenMedInfo.com
Regardless of the quantity of ingredients being absorbed through your nails, you also have to consider that nail polish does not promote the health of your nails. It has a domino effect of making your nails weaker and therefore more permeable, and then you absorb more of the chemicals, and the cycle continues. If you want nails that are strong, healthy-looking, and look nice in their natural state, nail polish will not accomplish those things for you. “Traditional” nail polishes (the more toxic ones) cause your nails to become dry, brittle, thin, and discoloured. I don’t say this to discourage you from using nail polish altogether, but rather to bring awareness to the fact that nail polish is not “healthy” regardless of whether or not the ingredients are being absorbed through your nails.
I also want to mention something that often gets overlooked when people ask the question of “does using natural products really matter?”. Think about all of the unhealthy chemicals that end up in landfills or pollute the earth in other ways just from the production of these products, as well as the chemicals that workers may be exposed to when producing these products, as well as the salon employees. I mentioned a research article above that says nail polish may be a significant source of chronic exposure to triphenyl phosphate (TPHP) for those who work occupationally with nail polish, and here is a second study that looked specifically at nail salon workers and found that skin contact was a relevant pathway of exposure to TPHP. These facts alone are enough for me to step back and say, “what kind of world do I want to live in?”. We can demand safer beauty products by voting with our dollars!
Non-Toxic Nail Polish Categories
When looking for non-toxic nail polishes, you’re going to see companies use phrases like “5-free”, “7-free”, and even “10-free” or higher. This means that the polish doesn’t contain 5 of the worst, or 10 of the worst, ingredients. These ingredients include formaldehyde, toluene, triphenyl phosphate (TPHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), xylene, and ethyl tosylamide, just to name a few. While that’s a step in the right direction, we can do better! These are marketing phrases that don’t give you the full picture of what is or is not in the ingredients list. They may not contain some of the most common bad ingredients, but there are still other bad ingredients that they may contain. You should still always evaluate the ingredients! But I know this can be overwhelming for the average person, which is why I’m doing the work for you!
I discovered that there are really three categories when it comes to non-toxic nail polishes. These are: peelable, water-based, and traditional solvent based but without all of the worst chemicals. Peelable and water-based ones have the safest (and shortest) ingredient list and are best for kids and for anyone who isn’t as concerned about durability. They would be good for anyone who likes to change their colour often, likes to wear polish often, or who doesn’t mind not having as many colour options. Since I mostly only paint my toes, and hate spending the time on it, I wanted a polish that was durable enough to look decent for about two weeks on my toe nails. That is typically the longest I would wear the same colour on my toes, because by that time my nails would need a trim and the polish would need some touch-ups anyway. The non-toxic polishes I tested did last about two weeks! (Read about that here.)
Ingredient Evaluation with EWG’S Skin Deep® Database
When I looked for nail polishes, I looked at every single ingredient on the ingredient list and checked the rating for that ingredient on EWG’s (Environmental Working Group) Skin Deep® Database. For those who don’t know, EWG reviews the scientific literature on hundreds of ingredients, and then gives them a safety rating based on two factors: what the literature shows about the ingredient, and then how much data is available on that ingredient. These factors are both important as some ingredients don’t have any studies evaluating them! Here is an important quote directly from EWG’s website:
“Cosmetics and personal care products are not required to be tested for safety before being allowed on the market. The Skin Deep® scoring system was designed to help the public understand whether a product is safe to use or whether it contains ingredients of concern.
EWG.ORG
Every product and ingredient in Skin Deep gets a two-part score – one for hazard and one for data availability. The safest products score well by both measures, with a low hazard rating and a fair or better data availability rating.”
Most nail polishes being advertised as non-toxic contain mainly the same ingredients, most of them with a rating of 1 or 2 on EWG (not including colourants/pigments, which often rate higher). BUT- there was one ingredient that rated a 4 that I found in many brands claiming to be non-toxic, and that ingredient is called Benzophenone-1. This ingredient is listed on EWG as “Unacceptable”, meaning that EWG VERIFIED products cannot contain this ingredient (quick side note: there are NO nail polishes currently verified by the EWG). I was already aware of the risks of many common nail polish ingredients, but I was curious what kind of research existed on the topic that I could share with you. I found this article (also mentioned above), and was not surprised to read about benzophenone-1 as a key concerning ingredient still found in many polishes.
In comparing the different types of nail polishes, water-based ones were definitely the least toxic, but they tended not to be as durable or were more cumbersome to apply (depending on the brand). For example, some instructions told you to apply a special base coat, then use a hair dryer to heat set the polishes, and that definitely sounded like a hassle to me! However, I would definitely recommend the water-based polishes for kids. Durability is not really a concern with kids, and safety is the biggest concern!
In part two of this post, I reviewed some of the popular non-toxic brands and made my recommendations for the best ones to buy. Be sure to read that post here. I had good success with a few brands!
Leave a Reply