Question from TA
Could you give your opinion about whether Piggy Paint nail polish is truly non-toxic?
Debra’s Answer
I’m correcting this post on 10 April 2016 after a reader pointed out an error I had made. Below is the corrected version.
At www.piggypaint.com/product-info/#.U3tmHSjaPZc they say:
Piggy Paint is specially formulated from God’s natural ingredients and dries to a hard, durable finish. There are no toxic chemicals; it’s free of formaldehyde, toluene, phthalates, Bisphenol A, ethyl acetate and acetone….Say good-bye to harsh, smelly chemicals and hello to Piggy Paint…it’s as Natural as Mud!
They also say it is nontoxic and safe for use during pregnancy, and that you can even paint the toes of babies.
Here’s the ingredient list on their website
Piggy Paint Ingredients Water, acrylates copolymers, melia azadirachta (neem oil). May contain: mica, red 34 lake, ultramarines, titanium dioxide, iron oxide pigments.
But I called them on the phone and they immediately emailed a different ingredient list to me (see below)
Now, toxic or not, I must take issue with their statement “It’s as Natural as Mud!” I don’t know how they are evaluating their ingredients to make this claim, but this nail polish is most definitely NOT natural!
Of the list below, the only natural ingredients are water, neem oil, mica, and copper. It’s full of plastics and coal tar colors.
Yes, it’s better than most nail polish, which contain formaldehyde, etc. But it’s not natural.
Is it toxic? Depends on your definition. Coal tar colors are not considered hazardous but have a long list of health effects associated with them. They were one of the first chemicals I eliminated when I wrote my very first book on toxics in consumer products in 1984.
The acrylate copolymer SDS says that it is not toxic and EWG’s Skin Deep says it’s hazard level is “low.” And The International Journal of Toxicology also reports that it can produce irritation, but little else.
I think the question here is where does one draw the line about what is hazardous? I won’t eat coal-tar colors because they cause cancer, so I would hardly call them safe or natural. But bound up in acrylate copolymer (itself made from crude oil) would they leach into your body? I don’t know.
For anyone sensitive to petrochemicals, this would not be a good choice. It’s not a product I feel 100% confident about recommending.
Thank you for answering, Debra. Now I’m back where I started, without a safe polish for my toenails. I am actually looking for a product for myself, not for a child, and I had hoped that this product designed for children would be truly safe. I have been going without polish while pregnant and breastfeeding, and prior to that I was using the safest ones I could find, such as those sold at health food stores, or the Aquarella brand. I’m not sure if any of those are entirely safe (they may be, but I just don’t know), and after what you’ve just demonstrated here, I guess it’s never safe to assume that the ingredients list of a product is actually complete and accurate. How can companies put one list of ingredients on the product and website, and another list on the MSDS?
Those “more natural” products I mentioned are probably safer than most, since as you said, they typically don’t contain formaldehyde and the other big offenders. But is there such a thing as a truly safe nail polish?
I saw another brand of nail polish somewhere on your site, but when I looked for it online, I noticed that reviewers said it didn’t stay on well at all. I don’t expect perfection, by any means, but I also don’t want to bother with something that’s more trouble than it’s worth. Any idea if there is a truly safe product that also performs well?
By the way, I saw this in the FAQ section of the Piggy Paint website. What do you make of it?
“Why is Piggy Paint as Natural as Mud?
Piggy Paint is as Natural as Mud in the sense that every ingredient in the polish is biodegradable with no traces or residues left behind, thus it would make an excellent addition to your mulch pile. The acrylic resins are present in the polish as emulsions-very similar in form and function to milk. The term “resin” is quite generic and refers to any polymer which can form a film as it dries. In this sense, proteins, celluloses, sugars, and DNA, to name a few “natural” polymers, are resins and none of these are any less harmful than the resins we use in our polish.”
I’ve not found a nail polish yet that I think is safe. Listen to my Toxic Free Talk Radio show Can There Be Such a Thing as Nontoxic Nail Polish?”>Can There Be Such Thing As a Nontoxic Nail Polish?
In my 10 years of researching/6 years of selling natural products, mostly cosmetics and body care, I can say that I’ve been told there are really only three water based nail polish labs that make the brands you see out there (just what I’ve heard, can’t verify 100%). Acquarella, Suncoat (out of Canada) and the other lab that makes Piggy Paint, Honeybee Gardens, Keeki, Scotch Naturals, etc. Water based polishes like these are the most natural I’ve found but certainly don’t fit that description of being “as natural as mud” in my humble opinion. I like that they are virtually odorless and allow me to enjoy painted toenails in the Summer months. I also feel better about my teen daughter using them over regular polish. Acquarella seems to be the best ingredient wise, their clear nail conditioner gets the best score with EWG’s cosmetics database. Then their color polishes, then Suncoat and the other brands I listed. Next in line after water based are the 5-Free polishes (a step above 3-Free ones you’ll see) but they have the toxic odor and are flammable, where the water based don’t and are not. The only other “safer” polish I’ve come across is the Provida Organics sold here http://allnaturalcosmetics.com/subcategory/5 but I’ve not ever actually tried them. They do appear to contain camphor though which has some toxicity concerns.
This is really interesting. This actually is the ONLY natural nail polish I’ve ever seen.
What you’ll find here is an empty nail bottle, in which you mix yourself the provided pigment and the natural topcoat liquid.
The topcoat contains: Grain alcohol, Shellac, Myrrh Extract, Castor Seed Oil, Japanese Camphor, Benzoin Gum, Essential Oils (limonene in Base Coat, and Benzyl Cinnamate in Top Coat).
They say that it only lasts 24 hours and chips easily. I’m wondering why they have you mix it fresh and wonder if you have to apply it immediately and it can’t be saved. Maybe a good solution for a special occasion.