A technician at Northbend Nails gives a customer a pedicure. (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Anyone who’s been in the same room as an open bottle of nail polish remover
knows how strong it smells. Now imagine working in those fumes all day, every
day. That’s what it’s like to work in a nail salon. There’s growing concern that nail
salon workers are being exposed to such high levels of these fumes that their
health is at risk. Ann Dornfeld reports on a project in Seattle to teach nail
technicians how to keep themselves safe at work:
Transcript
Anyone who’s been in the same room as an open bottle of nail polish remover
knows how strong it smells. Now imagine working in those fumes all day, every
day. That’s what it’s like to work in a nail salon. There’s growing concern that nail
salon workers are being exposed to such high levels of these fumes that their
health is at risk. Ann Dornfeld reports on a project in Seattle to teach nail
technicians how to keep themselves safe at work:
Connie Fields is at Northbend Nails today to get her nails touched up with liquid
acrylic. It’s been her ritual every two or three weeks for the past twenty years.
“Y’know, I work a lot with my hands and when my nails are done it makes
me feel good. It helps complete my dress, so I like nails. (Laughs)”
Still, Fields has her misgivings about the safety of nail products:
“I’ve had concern! Because years ago, whatever the chemical they were
using at the time, some girls had an infection.”
It’s not just the costumers who are at risk. The people who work with these chemicals day in and day out are the most exposed. Often, they’re Vietnamese immigrants. It doesn’t take long to get trained to
do nails, and you don’t need to speak much English. But language barriers can
keep Vietnamese nail salon workers from learning how to protect themselves
from workplace chemicals.
You’ve probably noticed this sounds less like a spa, and more like an auto body
shop. That’s how it smells, too. Salon owner Helen Hoang is combining
chemicals to create liquid acrylic for Connie Fields’ nails:
(Translated from Vietnamese:) “I use two products for this. One product is mixed with powder to make the
powder supple so I can paint it on. And the other one is a polymer to finish
it off.”
The odor is industrial-strength. And Kevin Burrell says that’s no exaggeration:
“The chemistry that’s used in the salon for doing nail finishes are very
similar to the chemicals that are used in auto manufacturing.”
Burrell is the head of the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle. He says most
nail technicians don’t realize that they’re doing a small-scale version of auto
painting, with the same kinds of chemicals and technique: a primer, a base coat
and a top coat.
Common chemicals in nail polish include formaldehyde and toluene. At high
doses, those can cause respiratory problems including asthma, headaches, and
even organ damage. Burrell says acrylic nails might be even more dangerous:
“They’re made of two chemicals, one of which has been banned at full-
strength in our state. You can’t use methyl methacrylate in Washington
State at 100% strength.”
But Burrell says products with 99.9% percent methyl methacrylate are still on the
market. That chemical has been limited or banned by at least 30 states. Studies
on animals suggest inhaling too much of it may cause respiratory and organ
damage. A recent University of Toronto study showed that a group of nail salon
workers’ children had signs of learning disabilities linked to solvent exposure.
And some studies show a chemical in nail polish called dibutylpthalate may stunt
the fetal growth of male testes.
Burrell says to limit exposure, nail salon workers need to use safe chemical
handling practices. So his organization is working on an education
campaign called Toxic Beauty. It’s funded by the Environmental Protection
Agency. The campaign sends a Vietnamese-speaking educator into salons to
show owners and workers how to protect themselves.
At Northbend Nails, owner Helen Hoang welcomed the advice. She already had
a ventilation system and air conditioning:
(Translated from Vietnamese:) “There’s probably just a few places that have ventilation systems because
they’re costly. It takes money to buy them and to run them. I don’t know for
sure, but my customers say the air is much better here than other salons.”
She says the educator showed her some other ways to limit chemical exposure:
(Translated from Vietnamese:) “Before, I threw everything away in just the trash can. They told me to put
everything in trash bags and tie them before I throw them away. Another
thing they recommended was to install vacuums in the manicure tables to
suck up the dust and fumes. I’m planning to do that.”
Ultimately, environmental justice activists want to nail salon
workers and customers to demand safer nail products. Pthalates, formaldehyde
and toluene have all been banned by the European Union in nail products. So far
only one major company, O.P.I., has agreed to change its US formulations, too.
The demand has to come from the ground up. That’s because the US government doesn’t regulate cosmetics for safety.
For the Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.
