Professional use nail polish products are essentially water-free, organic solvent based mixtures of colorants, film formers and other additives. Some have questioned the use of nail polish products in salons over concerns of a possible increased risk for transmitting microbes when a polish brush is reused on multiple clients.
Results:In all of the nail polish products tested, the introduced microbes were rapidly destroyed and there was no regrowth, even after fourteen (14) days.
Study 2- Salon Nail Product Repurchase
Results: No microbes were found in any of these twenty (20) salon repurchased nail polish products.
Conclusions: Because professional-use nail polish products do not contain water as an ingredient and are mostly made of organic solvents which can rapidly destroy microbes, this explains why these products don’t require traditional cosmetic preservatives. These results demonstrate that microbes cannot live in professional nail polish products and any microbes accidentally introduced would be rapidly destroyed. These results also demonstrate that a properly used, professional-use nail polish product may be safely applied to multiple salon clients because the organic solvents are an effective deterrent against microbial contamination.