What’s in My Nail Polish? Learning About Nail Polish Ingredients

As we become more conscientious about what is going on in the world around us, we are taking more notice of what is in what we put into our bodies, and what we put onto our bodies. More women are becoming increasingly aware of what may be in the nail polish that they are applying to their fingertips, especially as warnings of cancer and infertility have both been linked to its use.

So just what is in nail polish and can we become sick just by using it?
How Nail Polish Began

Nail polish has been around for centuries, and has been featured in many ancient paintings and depictions of famous queens and princesses (such as Cleopatra). What was used as “nail polish” then was of course quite different from what we use today. Oftentimes an iron oxide shade was rubbed onto the nails of women, or their fingers were even dipped in blood to give that polished nail look.
Nail polish was first created commercially in the 1920s by Michelle Menard with the intention of replicating the paint that you would find on a car. Women loved that shiny, varnished gleam of car paint, and so the first nail polish was just that – car paint! Nail polish has come a long way from those days, but the ingredients continuously evolve and change as nail polish demands change.
Nail Polish Ingredients Today
Nail polish ingredients today vary from company to company and formulation to formulation, but the general base of all nail polish is the same. Conventional nail polish contains:

• Nitrocellulose
• Solvents
• Film forming agents
• Plasticizers
• Resins
• Coloring agents/dyes

Nitrocellulose is in almost all traditional formulations of nail polish today. The nitrocellulose is mixed in with tiny, microscopic cotton fibers which are then manufactured in such a way so that they are even turned into smaller cotton particles. This ingredient is needed to help give the nail polish the desired thickness or “viscosity” that a company wants (so that the nail polish isn’t of a thin, water-like consistency) though the nitrocellulose/cotton particle mix cannot stick to the finger nail without some extra help.
This is where a polymer, such as a plastic or a resin is used. The plasticizers help form links between polymer chains, which allows the nail polish to be slightly flexible. The plasticizers, when mixed with a resin, help keep the nail polish from simply dissolving in any sort of soap and water or detergent solution.
Next comes the pigmentation and dyes. These, of course, give conventional nail polish their color and their added sparkle. A thickening agent is then used with the pigment and dye to help keep the color suspended (this is particular important if you are using a nail polish that contains any glitter or sparkles).
Remember that the ingredients you find in a nail polish vary greatly depending on the brand and formula you are using. Conventional or “traditional” nail polish does have a very different formulation from the increasingly popular natural nail polish. Natural nail polish tends to have a water base rather than an oil base, and the dyes and pigments are derived from natural sources (such as the iron oxide that was used in ancient times) rather than lab created dyes and pigments.

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