It’s really frustrating that they featured a lot of researchers who are trying to help these marginalized salon workers and then turned around and sort of focused on their audience - consumers (who they’re trying to convince to buy “clean” products). It de-centers the people actually being hurt
Further to this point, these marginalised workers often have few other options for work. Burdening salons with additional regulatory requirements, such as finding new suppliers for products, because of a theoretical risk to the consumer, would likely result in even worse outcomes for the workers. Salon owners (many of whom are likely immigrant women themselves) won't necessarily be able to absorb all of the costs, and workers may lose their livelihoods as a result. In contrast, interventions that actually improve working conditions and worker health, such as ventilation and PPE, may actually benefit these businesses over time through reduced employee illness, reduced insurance and (potential) legal costs, and less employee turnover.
I have had friends in the beauty industry, and one of the most mitigating things you can do for the health of workers when designing your salon setup is proper ventilation systems, it is the first thing you should think of when looking for a location. Look for high, open ceilings, so you can install real quality vents. Often nail salons do not have the best ventilation, they go in small storefronts, and have cheaper setup budgets than a hair salon, due to the lower cost services they provide. Also, using real respirator masks, and vacuums to remove dust from nail filing is important, as are gloves for hair stylists when applying bleach and colour all day. Edit: Eating on the job is also a risk in salons, and the best thing to do it give people real breaks so they can leave to a real lunchroom to eat and drink, or even leave the salon all together. I too often see nail techs with a can of coke or coffee open next to them while working on clients.
I think it would be great if there were regulations about where nail salons could be located (e.g not in a tiny store in the middle of a multi-level shopping centre), and for salon workers to be educated better about the risks - education on safe work practices was suggested by some of the researchers and it's in the Healthy Nail Salon guidelines. The Professional Salon Workers Act they promote has salon education shoehorned under the umbrella of "tackling chemicals of concern", because of course they did 🙄
@@internetexplorer6304 I'm sure there are a lot of very natural plants you shouldn't huff in any way despite being ever so natural. Natural does not equal safe. Besides asbestos is a naturally occurring silicate as well, so wouldn't that technically make it "clean"?
@@internetexplorer6304 Yup- expanding. I don't think every reply needs to be argumentative. Quite often I agree with what someone is saying and the direction they're going, and just want to add a bit to it.
Yep. I've seen these problems, too, back before I started doing my own gel nails. Workers need to be treated like people, and given proper protections and breaks. It's the hazard ≠ risk issue Michelle talks about; if you get high enough and frequent enough exposure to these chemicals, sure, you'll see some side effects. But that exposure can often be motivated by implementing the proper protections, which often gets overlooked because "eh, if someone quits or dies, we can always find someone else."
Having gone to my share of nail salons, ventilation should definitely be something that's focused on for the workers' health and not to mention their customers.
I’d love to see more nail polish content! There’s so much misinfo out there. My mom is constantly worried about me putting “toxic chemicals” on my nails
Me too! I've started doing my own gel nails cuz I'm bougie but poor, and I learned a lot from an actual professional who discussed the science to a point where I could not comprehend. No fear mongering language, no "gotcha" moments, just science and frank discussion. Really cool. I learned through this that I am allergic to methacrylates, and that simply using a better quality lamp and avoiding HEMA and HPMA have solved my problem. I wasn't pushed a "toxin-free" nail product line.
That's a very sensible educated guess, and they'd have more of a valid point if they focused on those... parabens are a big focus, but they focus on phthalates to try to make parabens sound worse 🤦 It's pretty bad!
People spreading misinfo about SPF makes me angry bc that shit can actually put ppl at risk for sunburn and skin cancer. Some people have become entirely anti SPF because of this weird purity thing around cosmetics and skincare
The irony of the shade thrown at him when the program is heavily sponsored by clean beauty brands and the workers rights got ignored for fear mongering.
Especially since I think that guy is Jim McConnell. Who would happen to have an incredible series on RU-vid explaining product chemistry for laypeople and nail techs. And "paid industry spokesperson" also sounds a whole lot worse than "Co owner of the brand light elegance"
Please do a video on nail polish. Edit: I don't do my nails often but am interested in this subject. Also, Fourth? Edit 2: 15:33 exactly! That should've been the focus. Better, safer working conditions for people inhaling these chemicals while working with consumers.
Love to hear this from a nail insider! I've been super into painting my own nails for years and the number of "toxic chemicals" that polishes purport to be "free" of now is hilarious. We went from 3 to 5 to 10 to 16-free in just a matter of years, and everyone assumes that the more things it's free of the better, with no critical analysis. I'd love to see more nail vids! I just about lost my mind when someone on IG said that soaking your nails in sea water several times a week to keep them healthy is a practice that's been "known for centuries" and has something to do with biotin. The only studies I could find about biotin and nail strength were done using oral administration in rats, sponsored by biotin companies. And even if the biotin could absorb through the nail or skin, it would have to be in high enough concentrations in sea water to matter. This influencer was getting called out left and right, but doubled down on her nonsense. Misinformation is pervasive, your channel is doing such great work!
It's a bit dramatic, isn't it? I blame the writers rather than Keke - I think she brings the right tone for the script 😂 It's kind of funny that she's doing sponsorships for some "dirty" brands now though...
Fr ventilation is so underrated! I usually paint my nails outside but from working in a lab, I’ve always dreamed of having a personal at-home fume hood for doing my nails 😅 tbh I feel like a 2-sided fume hood for designed for nail salons would be cool. We are also seeing now how important ventilation is for Covid… makes you think 🤔
Thanks for another great review. My biggest concern is for the salon worker's health with longterm exposure. I agree that more research needs to be done. Your point about ventilation is so accurate. "Clean beauty" is a money grab.
Thank you! Yeah, I found this episode a lot less annoying because it does bring attention to a very real problem, which is good.... but also encourage people to tackle it in really unproductive ways. It feels a lot like coral reefs + reef-safe sunscreen - a big risk of creating a smokescreen for inaction on climate change.
@@Buffalonie it's a fake solution to something people actually want. That is why it's more of a money grab than selling e.g. more colors of nail polish because your customers want more colors.
I wish they had talked more about people who suffer allergies as a result of doing nails. I have 2-HEMA/acrylate allergy from getting acrylic nails for 2 years. Science is so capable, you’d think there would be a hypoallergenic way for me to still get my nails done but I guess no one is interested in developing one since pretty nails mostly apply to us lowly women, usually minority.
So complicated to address the misleading aspects of things like this when they're being presented alongside actually good points. Love how this episode came together! Was stoked to see you talk about improving ventilation, definitely something that deserves more attention across many industries. I'm curious to know how nail salon air quality is regulated in other parts of the world.
I call it “Dr. Oz-ing” when absolute nonsense (usually “health” fearmongering for financial gain) is coupled with just enough accuracy to make the nonsense appear legit. He’s not the only grifter to use this tactic, but he’s one of the more famous (at least here in the US). He duped a number of relatives that way. I set them straight, obviously.
Hahaha thank you! I have to confess I haven't painted my nails in years though... my embarrassingly huge nail polish collection is just sitting there collecting dust 😅
@@LabMuffinBeautyScience I have an embarassing unused huge collection too! And I still drool on new collection of indie polish every month. Once an addict…
Rather typical- when any group starts to subscribe to an ideology, whether it be about finance, politics, or cosmetics, it no longer is about what can be realistically achieved, but all about religiously promoting that ideology, even in contradiction to reality and facts, and will (purposely) ignore or deride any other POV if not exactly the same as their own. On the last point, especially if actually more practical than their ideology.
I am curious to know if they came to the conclusion about nail salon techs having small babies by using American baby size averages. That would be an extremely intellectually dishonest comparison, because most nail salon workers are Asian and babies in East/West Asia have much lower average birth weights. Those ethnic populations tend to be physically smaller and are less likely to have obese parents (meaning there are genetic and dietary differences).
Thank you for everything in this video! Thank you for addressing how nail salon workers are overlooked because of their demographics, for pointing out how the documentary cherry picked, lumped uncorrelated conditions together, and participated in overall bad data communication practices. Context is everything! You. Rock! Also... LabMuffin was shouted out on Alexandra Anele for her views on clean beauty! I love seeing how much LabMuffin is educating everyone and it was affirming to see her mentioned on a longtime large beauty channel.
On talc and mesothelioma, there is asbestos in all kinds of places. My school, for example, found asbestos in a 1960s extension when I was there. You can't definitively say it came from talc unless you can prove it couldn't have come from other sources.
Your humor and skits are so on point, as is your intelligent breakdown of the shoddy data explanation. Thank you for your clear, concise, science-based, non-propagandistic explanations.
Yes! I live in hope that eventually governments will realise that they're losing more money to disability and sickness than they would need to spend to improve ventilation everywhere...
I have GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and am a bit of a hypochondriac because of it. I really only buy formaldehyde free nail polishes because of my health anxiety. I know it's probably silly, but there's a difference between what I do to soothe my mental illness and misrepresenting data to push their idea of clean. It honestly really ticks me off.
I love this series of myth-busting that you're doing on "Not So Pretty." Do you know what that literature says about UV lights for gel polishes and links to pre-mature skin aging on the hands? Thanks in advance :)
Great commentary. I am all about safety and ingredients. There is so much misinformation out there about. Also, the "clean" or "natural" ingredients are not always great and can cause problems as well. Hard to know what to trust
Thank you for this! As a nail technician, I enjoy learning about the science and chemistry behind the products I use. I have read 2 of Doug Schoon’s books and I value hearing your information and take on these issues. More nail science videos would be awesome!
Really appreciate this breakdown! You do such awesome work here. Thank you 💖 (It would be so cool to see your channel and How To Cook That do a collab!)
There are some of us who have a University education who are Nail Techs. Not all nail places are equal either. Some are reputable high-end establishments, overseen and endored by top industry beands and educators. Sweeping generalisations about Nail Techs Manicurists, Pedicurists and the like, are NOT helpful.
I think the main issue here with salons is the lack of education. Some "Nail Techs" arent even that.. a lot have zero qualifications, or minimal (think a one day certification). With the lack of professional qualifications comes the issue that these people can therefore NOT be insured.
Thank you for these videos! I was so freaked out after watching this doco series!!! I went out and bought a bunch of clean products, and actually got a red, itchy, oozing rash… sooo turns out I’m allergic to jojoba oil. 🥺🥺🥺
Oof, hope that resolved quick! My aunt is prone to really bad exczema outbreaks, and jojoba oil triggered one that literally lasted a year+ for her... really wish there was more variety for people who wanted to avoid ingredients they know their skin does not cope well with
@@stuffinsthegreat Hope your aunt is better now! Yeah, my eczema outbreak lasted months. And agreed… people don’t seem understand that natural ingredients can be harsh, particularly for those of us with eczema or rosacea.
Salon workers may not be "licking people's fingernails" but the customer will certainly put their fingers in their mouth at some point. Also, wouldn't TPHP be a risk for the customer since it would be absorbed by them?
I do like the santa nail art. I really dislike these kinds of programmes. It means that people trying to do the best they can for themselves and for salon workers will instead take the documentary's word for it.
Thank you! It felt pretty ridiculous wearing them around but it was fun - maybe a more elegant option would be to just have one Santa nail. Completely agree - it brings attention to a worthwhile issue but then diverts it to the wrong cause, which is really scummy in my opinion.
Your comments made me feel good about my nail routine - I do mine at home (I've never been in a nail salon, so can't really weigh in on that), and my two safety rules are active ventilation during both polish removal and application (as well as keeping the fan running for a while after I finish until no smell is lingering), and looking for formaldehyde-free products (that's covered under the 5 free label, for anyone who is curious). Great video as always!
i'm really loving this series. And i can see a lot of great potential for this to be a in deep research and study on how to teach science to kids. I'm studying to become a teacher and an important aspect missing from the curriculum is the context of the information given to kids and the lack of scientific process and attitude being taught. This series in general, can be great material to use in class and of course go into more detail to work with with kids, and making it a subject that can grab people's interest and can be further deconstructed to work with different types of scientific materials to advance on not only the formulas but also the use of them in irl stuff. Sorry if this is not explained well, I'm not a native English speaker and I do lack a lot of knowledge on this stuff. but I'm very enthusiastic about learning more, guess I need to tackle a lot reading to take advantage of this. Thanks for the series, and thanks for your channel, it really made me think a lot and gave me motivation to learn stuff I thought were boring or not for me. :)
Thank you for bringing attention to legitimate issues in the nail industry yet still being clear that a lot of the legitimate science being presented by this documentary is being presented out of context and being extrapolated from improperly ❤️
what I've never been able to find more info on is how damaging is a UV lamp to your hands? I want to get into gel nail art but I'm scared of skin cancer or damage to my hands
I think that's pretty well established, I didn't talk much about it because it's quite uncontroversial - even without considering "toxins", the dust from nails is a big cause of lung irritation, which is why proper masks are usually part of nail tech training.
I'd love to see you do a video about pregnancy and beauty products if you're interested in that sort of thing! If you aren't, no worries I will still be watching!
I feel like actual scientific institutions should start making more documentaries if they want to combat this kind of misinformation. It’s not like they really go above and beyond to make the factual evidence, accessible and seen by people who aren’t a part of a very hegemonic subset of people..people who are privileged enough to be able to participate in institution level science, or understand it in the way that they disseminate the information.
1:26 even before mask mandates I don’t remember a time in my life going to the salon and the nail tech *wasn’t* wearing some type of mask. It’s very normal for salon workers to wear masks every where I’ve been cuz they’re around the fumes all the time so the mask cAn help protect them from that.
2:54 something funny about your other video is before then I never heard about asbestos in talc (just that a couple years back Claire’s recalled 100% of their makeup due to asbestos but it was literally just Claire’s) I only heard about talc being linked to ovarian cancer
I remember your nails from my nail blogging times a few years back! That's why I had a strong feeling I saw this name somewhere 🙂 I still have some few hundreds nail polishes from that period of my life and obviously don't go to nail salon to paint my nails since I do that better in a total darkness etc. I was banned in some local nail polish chat where the admin was really crazy talking about how nail polish ingredients were bad for you and as a chemist enthusiast I dared to doubt her opinion on the matter. The surface of nails is nothing compare to the the rest of the skin and nails are way thicker and I can't imagine how much of a a formaldehyde is really absorbed and causes anything. Also, old nail polishes with toluene are lasting longer (although it gets much longer for them to dry) and women were using them for decades. Even though sometimes I re-painted my nails every other day (because modern nail polishes are really not long lasting and I was bored anyway), I would never say that it could cause some breast cancer or whatever. Cancers are always growing on constantly inflamed tissue - that's why for women it is mostly breast cancer and for men it is prostate cancer, the organs that after 40 are chronically inflamed in most of people. To get cancer you need to have a bunch of reasons and nail polish is definitely not one of them. In the end, we all get cancer because we are getting older and DNA mistakes are more common - if don't die of something else earlier - that's how mother nature works.
Another amazing intro!! You need to design a full LED bed :P Ventilation seems like such an OBVIOUS issue for nail salons, it's frustrating that a million people will have watched this and will go to their salon and demand "clean" nail polish instead whatever they've happily been getting for years.
I'm very hung up about the phrase from the documentary about nail salon workers developing cancer during their life time. Didn't know you could develop cancer when you're dead...
3:57 and 4:26 I really hate how predatory these clean beauty brands are to pregnant people and marginalized groups. Pregnancy is already incredibly hard and stressful enough. Also how dismissive health professionals can be instead of listening to their patients, especially if they are women. I am so grateful for the doctors that listen and offer proper trials when their patients show concern.
Hey girl, hello from The Nederland ! i really love your videos , it is always very interesting to understand the science behind of the beauty products and i love all the data that you present. Just wondering if one day you would talk about cocomidapropyl betaine and different names for it. I am allergic of it but mosts of shampoos has it… it is quite difficult to understand those ingredients with long names . Thanks
I'm really curious if any research has been done on the long term effects of those fumes that release during smoothening hair treatments, keratin smoothenings and all.. they burn the nose, how safe is long term exposure?
Thank you for your great work Michelle!! 💛 so I understand from this video that it’s not going to be harmful to us if we paint our own nails at home once in a while. I always avoided painting my nails because I was so worried about those chemicals.
Thank you for your great videos. I was looking for a new sunscreen and decided to watch the video on the "Best sunscreens 2021" to get a couple of pointers. Nevertheless, I cannot seem to access the video since it is categorized as private content. Is it just me or does anyone else experience this issue ?
The thing I don't get is even thinking about how they are more likely to have miscarriages that may not be due to working on beauty or nails in general it can be due to the fact that they're from lower classes than white Americans therefore they will have problems taking care of themselves and the baby
I'm really curious if any research has been done on the long term effects of those fumes that release during smoothening hair treatments, keratin smoothenings and all.. they burn the nose, how safe is long term exposure?
I remember when nail polish was a pretty new thing where I lived. It said that you're supposed to use it in only well-ventilated areas, or even OUTSIDE. Over time this seems to have been forgotten... but the solvents are still there, in the nail polish. Some people paint their nails 3-4 times a week, and even do designs, which amount to several hours a week, breathing in solvents which they don't bother airing out at all - I don't think that sounds OK...
Rather than being in cheap polishes, toluene is in specialist quick-drying polishes as a solvent because it's volitile. Most places seem to use gel these days but if they're using air-dry polish it makes sense that they'd be getting toluene ones.
All the salons I have gone to here locally use masks and have since well before the pandemic. I’ve also not noticed the pungent smell of chemicals in a salon for years though I imagine the nail techs notice it more than I do. I wonder if this is just in my area
Please talk about acrylates, I really like cetaphil lotion but I understand the acrylates may be a carcinogen. It is hard for me to just forget I read that.
When I saw the EWG in the doc thing I... 😬 I did change out my loose powder, but I didn’t like it anyway and the rare beauty one is good. My powder was like over 5+ yrs old too and it was when kvd beauty was kat von d beauty
Ingredients lists not required? Am I tripping? Admittedly I mostly skimmed the US specific parts in the milady nail technology textbook since I'm not in the US. But my understanding was that US laws require distributors and manufacturers of nail products to provide safety data sheets and for salons to have these available for all products used in their services. And section 3 of these list product composition. It's not the problem that this information isn't available, it's again a bigger issue that the most basic compliance with laws isn't enforced in this industry.
Also do my eyes deceive me or is the "paid industry spokesperson" Jim McConnell? If so I'd say the man's done more for educating nail techs and laypeople on product chemistry than this documentary could ever dream of
