The Proof Is in the Polish

Did I miss something? I’ve been walking through the aisles of the IBS Las Vegas tradeshow for the last two days and, in addition to plenty of other things to rant about, I’ve been assured by several polish and gel-polish companies that their products are “solvent-free” (in the case of gel-polishes) and “three-free” or “pregnancy-safe.”

Now, I’ve been watching the slow burn on the traditional polish ingredient witch-hunt for several years. I still fail to see the controversy.

It’s true I don’t really know the history of nail polish chemistry, but it seems to me that the stuff has been around for a long time. And for most of that time, nail polish seems to have been going along, quietly minding its own business without drawing much attention to itself.

So when did all these horrible polish-related deaths, dismemberments, miscarriages, and deformities happen?

When were the tried-and-true chemical formulas for basic nail polish found to be responsible for so many health tragedies that it became necessary to reformulate what had been working for generations?

Never mind the chemical ignorance and subsequent fear of chemistry that pervades our current culture and drives so many of these movements, I just don’t understand how so many people got convinced that a product as mundane as nail polish — which is also quite probably the one nail product with the longest, most intense field testing in our industry — deserves such intense scrutiny.

I’m all for product evolution and I’m not suggesting there may not be room for improvement, but I just fail to find myself convinced that I need to worry about pregnant women wearing nail polish; I’ve never heard a single horror story about a baby born with two heads because its mother couldn’t give up mani/pedis during her pregnancy.

I mean, no one’s DRINKING this stuff, right? But even if that’s the case, I hardly think we should have to change tried-and-true formulas just because of a few Darwin Award candidates.