Saturday, May 9, 2015

Is your 3 or 4 or 5-free nail polish really free?

By now you've probably read the NYT article about nail salon and human trafficking/exploitation (if not, get on it). There's been lots of interesting discussion stemming from the article as well. I would recommend, as usual, skipping the Jezebel commentary on the topic, in which the author goes apeshit in the comments - as she's been doing in the comments of other articles, including ones she didn't even write herself (I am hesitant to link from here to such ridiculous antics, but let me know if you want some directions to the train wreck). But Wondegondigo has a thoughtful discussion, for example.

As part of describing the poor working conditions of salon employees, a link in the NYT article pointed to a study done in 2012 on 3(+)-free nail polishes that showed that many of them still included the chemicals that they were supposedly free from (including formaldehyde, DBP, and toulene). In fact:

"Toluene was found more frequently, and in higher concentrations in products with toxic-trio related claims than in traditional products. Ten of the twelve products with “toluene-free” claims did, in fact, contain toluene."
You know that I am not overly concerned about "chemicals," but if these particular ingredients, which do pose potential health risks when used frequently or in the wrong way, are a concern for you, well . . . maybe you should still be concerned. Or you should be extra careful to paint your nail in a very well-ventilated space.

It was nice to see that the Zoya they tested in that study did turn out to actually be 3-free, so I can blissfully go on loving my Zoyas.

Zoya Dream
Zoya Dream

5 comments:

  1. When I started reading this post my fist thought was "What about Zoya???". Glad to know that Zoya is good. Shame about others though, especially ones that are supposed to be three-free.

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    1. Yes, I was relieved when I checked that Zoya was one of the few accurate ones!

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  2. Zoya polish is so pretty. I suppose I could say more about the 3-free/5-free, except I'm both not surprised and a little uncaring. I suppose I could worry more about chemicals, especially chemicals I'm putting on my fingers on a regular basis, but I'm not.

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    1. I'm not too worried about these things for my own sake, but they could be dangerous for people who work with them constantly. I'm more pissed off that the brands are outright lying about their products! There are fishy marketing claims and then there are blatant lies. Not cool.

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  3. Phew, so glad Zoya actually is free of all the stuff it claims to be free from! It's pretty shocking that some brands aren't though...

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