It’s time to welcome in the New Year, which can only mean one thing – party planning! For those who revel in the opportunity to glam it up, here’s the NYE nail looks to complete your night’s (eco) ensemble.

No need to book into the salon – these NYE nail looks skip any tricky designs and stick to easy-to-apply all over color. The cherry on top? We’ve even picked out our favorite non-toxic nail polishes that will do the job beautifully.

3 NYE Nail Looks to Get You in the Party Mood

1. Precious Metals

Keeping your mani classy and chic doesn’t have to mean boring. Gorgeous metallics are all the rage right now, and nowhere do they look better than on nails. Go for a grownup gold with Treat Collection’s khaki toned Mixed Message. Kure Bazaar also has an incredible selection with Or Bronze, Or Rose, Or Pur, and Platinum.

2. Confetti Glitter

New Year’s Eve is the night to go all out, so don’t be afraid to stand out with a little glitz! Just a sprinkle of glitter is enough to do the trick, keeping it concentrated at the tips and fading it out across the nail over a base colour – try SpaRitual’s Golden Rule. Another way to rock this look is slick across a chunky glitter top coat like NCLA’s Hollywood Hills Hot Number to create a starry night sky effect.

3. Hot Holographics

Why just sport one color when you can have two? Duochromes are set to be one of the biggest beauty trends for 2017, so get ahead with a nail look that follows suit. For a non-toxic option, it doesn’t get more on-point than Zoya’s 5-free Olivera nail polish, a mermaid-esque hue that shifts between emerald and purple.

Related on EcoSalon

5 Gorgeous Party Dresses for a Sparkling NYE: Friday Finds
3 Winter Makeup Looks Get Earthy: Taking Taupe to the Next Level
Non-Toxic ‘5-Free’ Nail Polish That Performs Like Gel? Meet SpaRitual Gold

The post 3 Dazzling Nail Looks to Make Your NYE Sparkle appeared first on EcoSalon.

To gel or not to gel? One woman’s journey.

It started on Facebook, as many first-world tragedies do. It was 2010. One moment I was staring in half-focus at the organic burrito a friend says is the best thing she’s ever eaten. An instant later, I snapped to attention. Former fearless EIC of EcoSalon, Sara Ost, had posted a picture of the Manicure to End All Manicures. Her colorful nails looked like they had each been individually sculpted by DaVinci—they were uniform, strong, and bold.

Who did your nails, NASA? I texted Sara. She replied, mysteriously: It’s a gel.

A gel manicure. This was the first time I had heard of such a thing, and I was completely hooked. A gel polish, also known as a shellac, is best described a nail polish on steroids. Gels dry quickly, don’t smudge, and last much longer than a regular manicure.

I have yet to indulge in a gel. Instead, I’ve spent much of my time with my nose pressed up against the windows of nail salons, staring lovingly at the perfect parade of nails like Gwyneth Paltrow stares at gluten-free scones. Though I covet the look of gel-perfect nails, I can’t bring myself to get them.

And here’s why.

Chemicals and Cancer
Could the perfection of the gel be toxin-free? I was dubious. Curious to learn about a safer gel manicure, I contacted several less-toxic nail polish companies that are “3-free,” meaning they are free of dibutyl phthalate (DBP), toluene and formaldehyde. While none of the lines carried a gel, not one would go on record to comment on them.

Does this mean there’s a great conspiracy theory about the toxicity of gels? No, but it did make me suspicious that they weren’t the cleanest tool in the makeup shed. Dr. Susan Taylor is a dermatologist who recently investigated gel manicures. She reports that gel polish may contain methyl acrylate, which can cause contact dermatitis. Further, cancer-causing butylated hydroxyanisol (BHA) is also found in some gels.

If You Gel: Ask your nail technician about the gel ingredients and proceed according to your comfort level.

Your Personalized Hand-Tanning Bed
Gel manicures often require that the user sit with her hands under a UV lamp for an extended period of time to set the nails. Do you want your hands to look like they belong on a New Jersey reality TV show doing Jell-O shots? Probably not.

Dermatologists at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the University of Texas Medical School recently presented an article on nails lamps. According to the Washington Post, “It appears that exposure to UV nail lights is a risk factor for the development of skin cancer; however, this observation warrants further investigation.” Others say the research is flawed.

If You Gel: Use sunscreen for your trip to the nail lamp. Sure, studies are conflicted, but is it really so hard to slather on some safe sunscreen? Your nail technician will probably even rub it on your hands for you.

Acetone, Be Thy Slayed
To remove a gel polish, fingers or sometimes, entire hands are soaked in acetone for 10 to 15 minutes. As the Washington Post shares, some technicians use “acetone-soaked cotton pads inside Band-Aid like wraps for removal.” In other words, get comfortable with acetone.

When I was in high school, I had to collect bugs for a science project. A classic Tracy Flick-style student, I was out hunting big bugs in a cornfield like Teddy Roosevelt in the Rockies. How I was instructed to kill the doomed insects? I sealed them in a glass jar with a tissue soaked in nail polish remover, aka acetone.

But the bugs have gotten their karma revenge on me. Because now, whenever I strip my nails of polish, I might as well be looking at the ghosts of laughing dead bugs buzzing around my fingers. Skin Deep gives acetone a rating of a “3”, a “Fair,” which means that its risk is between low to moderate. For some, that’s likely safe enough. For me, it means the bugs have won forever.

If You Gel: Only soak your fingertips in acetone, and don’t let the technician soak your entire hand. Since acetone is very drying, make sure you moisturizer as much as possible to avoid brittle nails.

photo credit: trec_lit via photopin cc

The post How Safe Are Gel Manicures? appeared first on EcoSalon.

In the growing sea of walk-in nail salons, green alternatives are few and far between, but there is still something to celebrate in the mounting crusade for chemical-free cosmetics.

Among the newest bars on the block in the Bay Area: Nova Nail Spa in San Francisco and Isabella Nail Bar in Oakland – both billed as upscale, environmentally healthy environments using strictly non-toxic products.

Nova describes itself as the city’s first true eco nail salon as it was designed using responsible materials, finishes, ventilation, pedicure seats, lighting and flooring. And it only uses non-toxic shades of OPI and Zoya polishes to avoid that “paint shop smell” associated with traditional nail salons.

Among its services is the Organic Paradise mani-pedi featuring an indulgent bath of geranium essential oil and fresh rose petals, finished off with a relaxing ginger body lotion massage. It costs $72 and there, perhaps, lies the rub. Some salon customers would rather pay half that for a quick in-and-out combo at the nail bar down the street.

“Many come to check out what nail products we use and like it because we use the top organic lines like Spa Ritual and we pay higher for this than regular products,” explains Nova owner Kim Tham, who also offers a $48 early bird special to women working near the Mission Street shop near the Moscone Center.

Across the Bay at true-blue Isabella’s, you can spend $58 for a combo, and pamper yourself with a refreshing and aromatic spa treatments. Its web page explains that it was opened with the goal of defying the pungent smell of acrylic products and “tacky” motel-like set-ups of most shops operating today.

The pungent smell they speak of comes from the toxic trio of toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) which safe cosmetic advocates are pressing the $35 million cosmetic industry to phase out of its nail polishes and other products.

Banned in Europe, the chemical compounds that make up phthalates have been linked to cancer, birth defects, chronic asthma and skin disorders, especially form frequent exposure. Adding to the fumes and the dangers are acetone, solvents, glues and disinfectants which also have been linked to health problems. U.S. watchdogs are quick to regulate hygiene to prevent fungal bacterias, as witnessed in California legislation, but slow to regulate the use of the poisons in the products.

Most at risk are Vietnamese immigrants who comprise 80 percent of the more than 90,000 licensed manicurists in California, alone. There are some 250,000 in America, including Korean and Chinese immigrants joining the fast-growing, money-making sector. These hard working, industrious women have carved a successful niche owning and operating salons and don’t want to risk their livelihoods or retaliation from making a stink. Going green offers a way out.

“It really is about changing the mindset of the workers and the customers,” explains Uyen Nguyen, owner of Isabella, which caters to a middle to upper clientele in the Montclair neighborhood and depends largely on referrals. “The mindset is one of being into the earth and good health and recycling and not focusing on making fast money from acrylics.”

That quick buck is what keeps some manicurists from working for Nguyen, even those who have complained their throats and lungs hurt at the end of the day. She keeps nine employees at one time and pays them well, hoping they will grow along with her. Issues over pay and mistreatment in the industry have surfaced lately, including a lawsuit last August on the part of manicurists in Newark, N.J. who alleged their salon employers failed to pay minimum wage and overtime and barred adequate breaks during shifts.

Nguyen says as word gets around about her green concept, more clients are coming from Berkeley and surrounding areas, and that some of her colleagues are now opening healthier salons and duplicating  her formula for success. Meantime, many other manicurists resist change out of fear.

“I know it isn’t healthy but what can I do?” asks Pong, a pretty 38-year-old single mother of two who works at Tower Nails in San Francisco where she does all of the acrylic nail treatments and hot wax hair removal. She immigrated from Can Tho in 1998 and supports her parents who live with her and her school aged children.

She is right to wonder what she can do, since the burden should really lie with the manufacturers who sell wholesale to the salons which often pay high rent to stay in business. To make a profit, women like Pong work long, hard hours, often six or seven days a week, sharing tips, eating quick lunches in the poorly ventilated rooms between services.

Since Vietnamese manicurists continue to use the hazardous products and don’t advocate for themselves, agencies like  the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative are working to advance an environmental health agenda for the nail salon sector in the state. Fiscally supported by Asian Health Services, an Oakland-based community health clinic, it reaches out to non-English speaking workers who are at a great disadvantage when it comes to accessing and understanding information on chemical dangers.

“One of the things we’re doing is compiling lists of the companies that have removed the toxic trio from their polishes, base and top coats,” explains Julia Liou, the director of program planning and development. “OPI, Zoya, Sally Hansen and the water-based Acquarella are a few that have committed to healthy change, but you have to research them since sometimes, they only take toxins out of seasonal shades.”

While advocates try to inform Asian women of the health risks,  consumers also need to brush up on chemical exposure, and to take a stand against the cosmetic industry with their pocketbooks. They can tell their neighborhood salons they prefer they buy the healthier brands, and start frequenting the emerging green nail bars, many of which are run by Asian women.

“Owners need to offer alternatives and the market needs to dictate the eco concept,” insists Nguyen. “This is how the healthy nail salon will become a trend.”

A Green Salon Near You

• Chi Organic Nail Spa, Beverly Hills, CA
• Evolution Green Room Salon, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Honey Nail Salon, Atlanta, GA
• Julep Nail Parlor, Seattle, WA
• Priti Organic Spa, New York City
• Pure Nails, Austin, TX

Images: quinn.anya, Nova Nail Spa, Isabella Nail Bar, Luanne Bradley

The post Will Green Salons Nail the Problem of Dangerous Exposure? appeared first on EcoSalon.