When I was young, I was known for my natural nails (and I still can grow them!). Even in elementary school, I carried a real nail file in my backpack. I’d often be filing my nails in class. Being Gen X, no one blinked. My fundamental Christian parents didn’t allow me to wear makeup, but my nails? My Mom had no issues with that.
As a teenager, I often wore inch-long nails buried under 5 to 20 layers of nail polish. On the very long bus ride to school, I’d often sit in the back and paint my nails before school. It gave them time to dry and not wreck the manicure. And yeah, I was not using high-quality polish. I lived off of Wet n’ Wild back in the late 80s and early 90s. That stuff was so nasty.
18, and I was styling.
Even though I rarely wore makeup or heavily styled my hair, my nails were my constant. I’d spend once a week doing them. I almost went to beauty college to do nails for a living, but I couldn’t stand the smell of the gel and acrylic nails, so that kept me from doing it as a career choice.
Even as I got older, once the growing/gardening season was over, my nail polish came out, and my nails were gorgeous all off-season. My nails were often short and dirt-stained in spring and summer but not in fall and winter.
(The weekly manicure in winter – a frosty teal that week.)
Last year, I started noticing how gross I felt inside, internally, after I would paint my nails. My fingers felt “off.” While I used supposedly “better” brands for the fumes, I’d have a headache every time, especially as I prefer bold, metallic colors.
But the real issue was the removal of the nail polish.
When I used more “traditional” brands, I could use non-acetone polish removers, but because they didn’t work well, I would have to soak cotton balls in the remover and then let them sit on my nails for a long time to soften up the polish so that I could scrub the softened polish off. Frustrated, I would get out the acetone polish remover, which would quickly remove dark colors (anything red, burgundy, black, metallic, or with glitter, you have to use acetone).
After I used the removers, acetone, or other, but especially acetone, my nail beds would throb for an hour or so. I would get a migraine within hours of doing it. I started noticing this quickly and realized I was poisoning myself. Then, the nail damage started. My normally very healthy nail beds were peeling, looking distressed, and with noticeable ridges. So, I started a cycle of painting my nails to hide my ugly nails. Wash, rinse, and repeat. And my nails looked awful plain, and hurt. So I’d do it again.
Then I stopped. I had had enough.
A year ago, I stopped painting my nails. I let them go natural, kept trimming them until they grew out, and finally, they recovered.
As I entered the last day of summer yesterday, my mind wandered that I hadn’t started painting my nails for the off-season. A year of being free? That taught me something. My nails have been strong. There is no peeling; I need to shape it with a nail file and maybe a gentle buffing to give it a shine if I want to. My nails look amazing, even when short. I recently had them in an inch-long natural (because of my arm injury, I could have long nails this summer).
So am I being all woo-woo? I don’t think so. Even the US government agrees the removers are bad for us. And the non-acetone removers are not great either.
I do miss painting my nails. I miss how pretty they made me feel.
I have looked into various “natural” options, where the nail paint is water-based, and the removers are presented as being safe. However, research says that while they are less toxic, they still have issues. Even natural companies can’t quite say their items are risk-free:
Toxin Free Nail Polish / Products:
Lengthy exposure has not been shown to pose any harm to humans.
Non-Toxic Nail Polish / Products:
When used as directed and in the amounts in our products, it is not harmful to humans
with daily “chronic exposure” (i.e., nail salon workers) to amounts used in the
product.
I have reached a point where I don’t feel it is worth the risk anymore. Because…what is exactly “lengthy exposure”? That would depend on the person using it. One person might handle it better than the next.
I started back up my herbalism studies this past year, and I am finding that so much isn’t worth it. Maybe it is just enough to be natural? Maybe I need to accept that. And that it’s mother nature’s plan for me.
~Sarah