Nail Polish

Its can be funny how one doesn't think about normal things in their lives. As I have started to question the impact of everything in my life on the environment, I have found so many things that I didn't realize had plastic in them. 
For example, nail polish. I am not sure what I thought was in nail polish, however I didn't realize that most nail polish is based on plastic compounds. As I dived more into the nail polish industry, I realized how bad it really is. Nail polish is considered a household toxic waste because of all the chemicals in it. You cannot recycle the glass bottles with any polish left in them. I've used nail polish for years and never knew these things. 
I have very thin and fragile nails, and I've used polish over the years to try to make my nails stronger. While plastic nail polish does protect the nail, it isn't actually making my nails any stronger or helping in any real sense of the word. 
In my looking around, I found that there are water based nail polishes and polishes that try to be free of many of the harmful chemicals used by most companies. Some of these companies have programs for recycling nail polish bottles as well. I did a little experiment and tried three of them this past week. I bought a bottle each of Tenoverten, HoneyBee Gardens WaterColors, and Acquarella polishes. In environmental terms, these three companies are way ahead of others in the industry. 
Tenoverten is out of New York City and their advertising talks about: 8-free + cruelty-free + vegan
does not contain: dibutyl phthalate (dbp), toluene, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, camphor, ethyl tosylamide, xylene, triphenyl phosphate (tphp). 
HoneyBee Gardens, out of Pennsylvania, promotes their nail polish as "Gluten Free, Vegan, Cruelty Free, Odorless & No VOCs, Non-Toxic Earth-Friendly Formula, Quick drying, Product does NOT contain: formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl phthalate, camphor, formaldehyde resin, xylene, parabens, fragrance, nitrocellulose resin, animal ingredients, triphenyl phosphate, benzophenone-1." As I have looked around, this seems to be the brand with the least number of things in it and trying to make the least environmental impact. 
Acquarella is out of Tucson, Arizona and gives this detailed information about their polish: "Acquarella polish is a water base with a non-toxic, proprietary acrylic emulsion with ultra low residual monomer levels (< 0.1%), ensuring safety. Our non toxic colorants are specially formulated using iron oxide pigments. Our Acquarella Conditioner is a clear polish and free from any colorants." 
I compared these polishes to Sinful Colors Professional and Sally Hansen. These are two of the most common nail polish companies in my area. 



I learned while doing this that Sally Hansen has started a vegan nail polish line called Good. Kind. Pure. I took pictures of my nails after one day and after two. Unfortunately, the water based nail polish did not hold up very well. 

After one day


After two days

In contemplating my use of nail polish, I have decided this will be a case of use what you have and make better choices in the future. I am planning on cutting down my use of nail polish and simply using what I already have (and disposing of it properly now that I know!). 





 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nutritional Wellness

Image
I love food.  The tastes, the smells, the experience of eating.  I even like gardening and the creation of food. The cooking and baking processes of making individual items into marvelous meals.  My digestive system has a much more complicated relationship with food. There are many things my digestive system overreacts to or feels the need to attack.  Over the years of trying to figure out what my digestive system will tolerate I've had to change my focus on eating for wellness  and learn to create the things I like with the ingredients my body also likes. Its not an immediate change in mindset. It takes time and energy and reminders. Because eating is such a communal experience, it has also taken community adjustment. Finding family and friends who will support my journey and focus on wellness.  I have found that my focus on wellness has been a little bit contagious.  As others have supported me in focusing on digestive wellness, others have been inspired to focus on their own nut
Read more

Book Review: Radiant Rebellion: Reclaim Aging, Practice Joy, And Raise A Little Hell, by Karen Walrond

Image
This isn't a scientific book about aging. It isn't a book about how to age well or what you should do as you are aging. It is a book about aging into who you want to be.  It is a book about looking into the mirror and seeing the smile on your face and light in your eyes. Karen Walrond guides us on the journey she took leading up to her year of aging anniversaries and milestones. She explains how she took the time and space in her life to reflect on what it means to age, to acknowledge and combat internalized ageism, and to figure out who she wanted to be as she grew older. She shares some research, tips, tricks, and lessons learned from professionals and elders in her life. As in her previous books, her conversational writing style, easy prose, and gift of storytelling makes this an interesting and engaging read. She offers thoughtful challenges to the 'normal' ways we think about age and what it means to grow older.  Karen Walrond doesn't take the reader on this jo
Read more

The Question of Faith

  What do you have faith in? Now I know the parables are good today, And I'm not going to talk about them Because one of the most basic things about religion is faith. You can blame St. Paul for today's sermon. All religions require faith. Faith is the belief in things not seen. In some ways, all the ideals we aspire to love, justice, charity, hope they are the bedrock on which any religion is created, including some things we don't think of as religion, but could be construed that way, are things we cannot see. We can't see justice, certainly these days we don't see a lot of evidence for it. We can't see equality or freedom or peace because they are ways of talking about systems in which everyone belongs and feels comfortable being themselves and we know we have not achieved that kind of world. Anyway, without faith, there is no religion no Christianity, no Judaism, no Islam, no Jainism, no pantheism. In the passage from Paul to the Romans, he writes, "Now
Read more