When it comes to beauty products, there are a lot of different terms, formulations, and ingredients you may not be familiar with. One of our reasons for bringing you clean beauty products was because we were tired of seeing ingredients we couldn’t pronounce, and wanted to bring a cleaner nail polish to the market.
An important differentiation when we’re talking about nail polish is water-based vs solvent-based. What’s the difference? Is one better than the other? Since water is a familiar ingredient, is that safer? Well, we’re here to break it down for you.
Water-based nail polish uses water as the main ingredient in the polish base, rather than an oil or chemical solvent. Water-based formulas are often embraced by beauty brands looking to market a cleaner product, aiming to reduce the amount of chemicals and odors in the polishes. Water-based polishes may be less durable, and many are advertised as peel-off formulations
Now, solvent-based nail polish is what you would typically see at a drugstore or salon, and the polishes use either an oil or a chemical solvent as the base to suspend pigments and other ingredients with a longer lasting finish. While true that solvent-based polishes often have chemicals and other unwanted toxins floating around, not all solvent based polishes are made equal.
Did you know Taylor Made Polish is actually solvent-based?
Here’s the reason why. While water-based polishes sound familiar, and cleaner, since they’re roughly 55% water, they’re usually only 6- or 7- ingredients free. When that is the case, they still contain some less than ideal ingredients. While sure, some solvent-based polishes are filled with chemicals, our solvent based formulation is unique in that it is 10-free, so it has even less bad ingredients than water-based counterparts.
What is 10-free?
10-free formulations mean the polish does not contain the following ingredients:
- Formaldehyde
- Toluene
- DBP
- Camphor
- Formaldehyde Resin
- Xylene
- Ethyl Tosylamide
- Parabens
- Phthalates
- TPHP (triphenylphosphate)
Why wouldn’t you want these ingredients in your nail polish?
For starters, most of these are hard to even pronounce. Second of all, these are chemical ingredients that have big health implications. Not only is nail polish going near your skin, it’s going on your nails and may enter your mouth, eyes, or food. That’s a bit too close for comfort! For example, formaldehyde is a skin irritant, carcinogen, and a preservative. Similarly, triphenylphosphate can cause allergic skin reactions. What you’re putting on and near your skin matters, and we believe great, long lasting nail polish can be made without the additives.
So, when it comes to choosing your nail polish formulas, it’s not all about the base, but rather the overall package. While water-based products can be tempting, they still may hide some less than stellar ingredients you may want to avoid. Our solvent-based formula provides an effective and clean polish that is 10-free and long lasting. When in doubt, read the label and do your research, and you won’t be disappointed!
