Image from Flickr by Joe Schlabotnik

If you love your mani/pedis and you can’t even fathom switching up your routine, STOP READING NOW.   Seriously.

Here is the bad news: most of your favorite salon nail polishes contain three incredibly bad ingredients that make you wonder why anyone would ever include them in a product that is supposed to go on any part of your body: formaldehyde, toluene and dibutyl phthalate.  What, you say? Well, let me break it down:

• Formaldehyde:  Yes, the stuff that has been used to embalm dead people, is being used to make nail polish.  It has been linked to Cancer, developmental/reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, allergies/immunotoxicity, organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), occupational hazards, biochemical or cellular level changes.  Formaldehyde is also classified as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  It has been banned for the use in cosmetics in Sweden and Japan.
• Toluene:  Linked to cancer, developmental/reproductive toxicity,  neurotoxicity, allergies/immunotoxicity, organ system toxicity (non-reproductive) and irritation of the skin, eyes, or lungs.
• Dibutyl phthalate:  Linked to developmental/reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, allergies/immunotoxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation and organ system toxicity (non-reproductive).

As I have dry and thin (translation: horrible) nails, I was tempted to try OPI’s Nail Envy Natural Nail Strengthener, Soft and Thin.  Note the word: Natural.  Hmmm.  Let’s have a look-see at the ingredients before adding it to my Amazon cart:

1. Dibutyl phthalate – check.
2. Formaldehyde – check.

Or, I could try Nailtiques Protein Formula 3: you guessed it, it has all 3 ingredients.

Now, I would never suggest you cut out your polish completely.  But I hope that knowing what’s in the polish you have already might entice you to check out some organic polish makers.  Zoya and Suncoat seem like good companies to start with.

And in case you want to do your own investigating, I found all of the above information regarding ingredients on the Cosmetic Database.  The site is extremely useful for checking out an incredible array of  cosmetic products.