I saw a story in the New York Times that caught my attention: Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers. The subtitle: “Some ingredients used in nail products have been tied to cancer, miscarriages, lung diseases and other ailments.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Every time I enter a nail salon the smell of chemicals permeates the air as powerful as a fish market. I guess I just always assumed that if we’re using these products they have to be safe, for the most part. Right?
The article opened my eyes and gave me pause. I started looking for brands that don’t use the toxic chemicals mentioned in the Time’s article. There are actually quite a few, among them: Jin Soon, LVX, and Priti NYC.
Each of these brands are 5-Free, which means their products don’t contain the harsh and potentially dangerous ingredients, names I can’t even pronounce like dibutyl phthalate, camphor and toluene.
I was encouraged to know these polish lines were out there, but how good were they? Would my nails chip or peel after day one? Could these so-called natural lines stand up to their less conscientious competition? I was skeptical. Mainly because I felt the words “green” and “organic” had jumped the shark and I wasn’t sure I was buying better, but perhaps just being bought by clever marketing.
So I decided to try it out myself. I hit the local salon with four bottles of LVX. A 3-in-1 treatment coat, Haze for the hands and Graphite for the feet. Lastly, a top coat gel and I was good to go.
One week later I was amazed that my nails were still intact. Impressive.
Needless to say I came home and emptied my shoe box of old polishes into the trash and will be replacing them with non-toxic lines. Not just for myself, but for all the people who work in salons and are subjected to these toxins day in and out. Our choices matter and with companies now offering cleaner, safer alternatives, why not make a change to a join a larger change?
WOMcity 