Could your Nail Polish be poisoning you?

Attractive and desirable though they are, no nail products are 100 percent safe and nontoxic. You can find products with fewer hazardous chemicals than their conventional counterparts, but try to use these sparingly or save them for special occasions.

If you've ever been in the same room as someone applying nail polish, you're well aware of the noxious odors emanating from those tiny bottles. Nail polishes have come under fire lately for containing three chemicals dubbed the "toxic trio": toluene, a solvent linked to low birth weight and development problems in children; formaldehyde, a known carcinogen emitted as certain preservatives break down; and dibutyl phthalate, a hormone disrupting chemical used to keep polishes flexible. All three appear on California's Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm.
Concern over the health effects that the toxic trio pose to both nail salon workers and to average women led the European Union to ban them from use in cosmetics in 2004. The U.S. has no such legislation, but individual states have started instituting similar laws. California's Safe Cosmetic Act of 2005, which went into effect January 1, 2007, requires companies that sell products in California to report the use of compounds that appear in the Proposition 65 list.

In the absence of federal guidelines, some manufacturers have begun eliminating them on their own. Nail giant OPI has removed both DBP and toluene from all products, although they still use formaldehyde in nail hardeners. Sally Hansen has also removed toluene and DBP and does not add formaldehyde, but the latter may still be present as a byproduct of urea-based preservatives. According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Orly International has stopped using DBP as well.

These rules and voluntary changes, however, don't address the other unhealthy ingredients in tiny nail polish bottles. Solvents such as acetone and ethyl, butyl and amyl acetate can trigger headaches, dizziness, and eye, nose and throat irritation. Methacrylate resins, used to make acrylic nails, can irritate skin and cause redness, allergic reactions, pain and swelling in the nail bed. Ethyl and methyl methacrylate are the two adhesives used in applying acrylic nails, and they too are extremely irritating to skin, eyes and respiratory tracts. Methyl methacrylate has generated so many worker complaints of allergic reactions that it has been banned in 30 states.