Learned and Lacquered: Biotin

Personally, I avoid taking vitamins. I take enough prescription medications already, so I'm not too keen to add any more in if I don't really need them. However, there are several different vitamins and nutrients that have been shown - though there are have only been a few studies, so it's not by any means guaranteed - to help nail health and growth. Zinc, vitamin E, silicon, iron, and L-cysteine have all been reported to help nail health, but today I'm going to focus on biotin.

Biotin, probably the most well-known "nail health pill," is actually vitamin H. It's part of the B complex group of vitamins, which is necessary for healthy skin, hair, nails, eyes, and liver. Because biotin is water-soluble, it is not stored in the body - that means that you have to have a constant source of biotin for it to make a long-term difference.

Fortunately, there are several different sources for biotin. Some foods are sources of biotin: brewer's yeast (I like it on popcorn!), cooked eggs and egg yolks, sardines, nuts, soybeans, beans, black-eyed peas, whole grains, cauliflower, bananas, and mushrooms all contain biotin. However, it's important to remember that food processing techniques often destroy biotin, so that's yet another reason to eat more naturally grown and unprocessed foods.

Biotin is also available as a supplement, both on its own and as part of multivitamins. One issue that often comes up with taking supplements is toxicity. However, with biotin, you don't have to worry about that. Biotin has not been shown to have any side effects, even with high doses, and is considered non-toxic.

So, who should take biotin? Though biotin deficiency can occur, it is very rare, and is seen most often in people from Saudi Arabia. However, even if you don't have abnormally low levels of biotin, it can still help strengthen your nails. You may particularly want to take biotin if you are on long-term antibiotics, as those can destroy intestinal bacteria that make biotin, or if you take anticonvulsant medications.

Here's the summary:

• Biotin, which is actually vitamin H, can help nails grow stronger and healthier.
• Biotin can be consumed both in some foods and in over-the-counter supplements.
• Biotin has not been shown to have any side effects, even in high doses.
• Long-term antibiotic or anticonvulsant medication use can reduce the body's levels of biotin, in which case a supplement may be particularly advisable.

I hope you found this post both enjoyable and informative!

Learned and Lacquered: Emollients & Skin Conditioning Agents

If you don't want to read the whole post, scroll to the end for a few essential points (in bold).

Today's L&L post is about two very important categories of nail polish and nail care product ingredients - emollients and skin conditioning agents. They're basically the same thing, which is why I'm not doing two separate posts. A skin conditioning agent or emollient is something that lubricates, softens, or smoothes the skin. Many emollients and skin conditioning agents (hereby categorically referred to as emollients, because it's a shorter word/phrase and I'm lazy) are natural ingredients, such as coconut oil and soy protein, and many have additional benefits, such as nail growth, antioxidant properties, and so forth. Many nail products, especially cuticle and hand creams, include such ingredients, but I've found that Dr.'s Remedy is the most emollient-rich nail polish brand out of those I own.

image credit

A lot of the emollients used in nail polish are ingredients you could probably recognize without any help. However, there are also quite a few with more "scientific" names, which is why I've compiled a list of all the skin conditioning agents and emollients I know to be used in nail polishes and products. It's a very long list, so I've put it in a smaller font.

Acetyl Tributyl Citrate, Adenosine Triphosphate, Algae Extract, Allantoin, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract OR Aloe Vera OR Aloe Vera Concentrate, Arginine, Ascophyllum Nosodum Extract, Aucoumea Klaineana Oleo-Resin Extract, Biotin, Bisabolol, Calcium Pantothenate, Calendula Officinalis Flower Oil, Carthamus Tinctorius (Safflower) Seed Oil, Cellulose, Centaurea Cyanus (Cornflower) Extract, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Cholecalciferol, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Codium Tomentosum Extract, Collagen Amino Acids, Corallina Officinalis Extract, Diethylhexyl Adipate, Dimethicone, Glycerin, Glyceryl Stearate, Hippophae Rhamnoides Oil, Hyaluronic Acid, Hydrolyzed Collagen, Hydrolyzed Conchiolin Protein, Hydrolyzed Protein, Hydrolyzed Vegetable/Wheat/Rice/Soy Protein, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Jojoba Oil, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Flower/Leaf/Stem Extract, Mannitol, Maris Sal/Sea Salt/Sel Marin, Mineral Oil, Neopentyl Glycol, Olea Europaea (Olive) Leaf Extract, Panthenol, Papain, PEG-12 Dimethicone, Polyacrylic Acid, PPG-2 Dimethicone, Propylene Glycol, Retinyl Palmitate, Ribes Nigrum (Black Currant) Seed Oil, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Saccharide Isomerate, Serine, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Soy Amino Acids, Stearyl Alcohol, Threonine, Tocopheryl Acetate, Trihydroxypalmitamidohydroxypropyl Myristyl Ether, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea Seed Oil, Vitamin D, Wheat Amino Acids, Zea Mays (Corn) Oil


Whew! I wouldn't have included the list at all because it's so long, but I thought it might be good for reference.  Here are the essential facts:

• A skin conditioning agent or emollient is something that lubricates, softens, or smoothes the skin.
• Many are natural ingredients - that is, they come from sources found in nature, such as plants.
• Many emollients have additional benefits such as nail growth and antioxidant properties.

P.S. I think trihydroxypalmitamidohydroxypropyl myristyl ether wins the prize for longest nail polish ingredient name ever, don't you? Have a great day!

Learned and Lacquered: UV Absorbers

I wouldn't be surprised if you all thought Learned and Lacquered had died somewhere along the way this June, but I never intended for the third part of the series to be so long in coming - I've just been, simply put, hella busy! Who knew that an unemployed teenager could be so busy during the summer months, eh? Anyway, though I have occasionally had a little time to whip up a post, I haven't had enough time to think about writing one of these until now. Fortunately, I am now relatively busy-free until I have to get ready to leave for Greece (fingers crossed) the last week of July. All of my personal matters aside, today's topic is a type of ingredient that I had no idea was so prevalent in polish until I started my research and squinty label-reading: UV absorbers.

This photo belongs to iquebalsun on deviantART

As I hope you all know, in addition to the rays that the sun emits in the visible light spectrum, it also emits ultraviolet rays, or UV rays. UV absorbers are used in many products to absorb ultraviolet rays, and are used to many different effects. However, I'm going to assume you only care about the nail polish, so let's move on to that. All of the top coats I have ingredient lists for (you can see the document here) contain at least one UV absorber, and so do at least half of the nail polish brands.

There are not that many different UV absorbers used in nail polish - the only ones I know of are Benzophenone-1, Benzophenone-3, Benzophenone-4, and etocrylene. Those UV absorbers are used to protect polish from yellowing due to ultraviolet rays; however, I also wonder if they might have another use. UV absorbers are used in plastic to prevent the plastic from aging and becoming brittle due to ultraviolet rays - in fact, benzophenones are used for this purpose in PVC plastic. I'm inclined to think that benzophenones might also increase durability in nail polish, especially since nail polish contains plasticizers. This is just conjecture on my part, but I think it's an interesting possibility. If you know anything about it, please leave a comment.

Aaaand here's the recap:

• UV absorbers are chemicals that absorb ultraviolet rays.
• Benzophenone-1, Benzophenone-3, Benzophenone-4, and etocrylene are UV absorbers used in nail polish.
• UV absorbers help keep nail polish from yellowing and, possibly, increase the wear time of polish.

Learned and Lacquered: Solvents

Note: I edited my previous post to include a list of other film forming agents.

If you don't want to read the whole post, scroll to the end for a few essential points (in bold).

Today I'll be talking about a very important kind of nail polish ingredient. There are solvents in every nail polish and top/base coat I own - without solvents, you wouldn't have nail polish as we know it today. Solvents are also the essential ingredients in nail polish remover and nail polish thinner.

from Orchid Chemie

So what are solvents? Solvents are substances that are used to dissolve other substances. In the case of nail polish, solvents are also helpful not only for that reason, but because they (including butyl acetate, pictured above in drums) evaporate quickly, which naturally means that the polish dries more quickly as well. The two most common solvents in nail polish are ethyl acetate and butyl acetate - if you grab the nearest bottle of polish and look at the ingredient label (you may have to squint), you are almost guaranteed to find at least one of those two solvents.

Solvents are also used to remove nail polish. When you remove nail polish, there is no chemical change that occurs - a solvent is merely being applied so that it returns to liquid form. If the solvents in nail polish never evaporated, nail polish would remain in liquid form. Similarly, if there was some way to take nail polish off of a cotton pad (without taking cotton bits along), you could conceivably put it back in the bottle, add a little ethyl or butyl acetate, and go on like that forever.

So...do you think you can guess how nail polish thinner works? That's right - solvents! As polish is exposed to the air, the solvents gradually disappear because of their fast-drying quality. To get it back to its original consistency, you therefore must add more solvents. Beauty Secrets Nail Polish Thinner contains ethyl acetate, butyl acetate, and heptane, all three of which are solvents. When you add a few drops to a goopy bottle of polish, the solvents further dissolve the polish, making it become thinner. However, as many of you know, adding acetone, which is also a solvent, to a bottle of polish to thin it won't work - the polish will become thick and gooey. I'm not sure why that is, but I've heard it from many different people.

Here's a list of solvents found in nail polish, nail polish remover, and nail polish thinner: Benzyl Alcohol, Butyl Acetate, Butylene Glycol, Diacetone Alcohol, Dibutyl Phthalate, Ethyl Acetate, Heptane, Isobutyl Acetate, Isopropyl Alcohol, n-Butyl Acetate, n-Butyl Alcohol, Butyl Alcohol, PPG-2 Methyl Ether, Propyl Acetate, SD Alcohol 40-B/Alcohol Denat., Toluene, Trimethyl Hydroxypentyl Isobutyrate, Zea Mays (Corn) Oil

And finally, here's your recap:

• Solvents are substances used to dissolve other substances.
• The two most common solvents in nail polish are ethyl acetate and butyl acetate.
• Solvents are essential to nail polish remover and nail polish thinner.

I hope you enjoyed today's "lesson," and are looking forward to next week's!

Learned and Lacquered: Nitrocellulose

If you don't want to read the whole post, scroll to the end for a few essential points (in bold).

About a week ago, I was on my way home from a doctor's trip with some new nail purchases (doctor trip in St. Louis = trip to Ulta), and I started reading the box on my bottle of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, which I've finally gone back to after giving up the hope that Seche Vite will ever stop shrinking my polish. I looked up all the ingredients, and what I found was pretty interesting to me. I asked my Twitter peeps if they would also find such information interesting, and the resounding response was, "yes!" So, I decided to start a series about the more science-y (but interesting) parts of nail polish - why certain polishes act the way they do, what the ingredients are and what they're for, etc. Today, I planned to talk about some of the main ingredients in nail polish, but I started with nitrocellulose and found that there was a lot to say, so I decided to stick to that.

from GuideChem

Nitrocellulose is the primary film former in nail polish. It gives nail polish durability and allows it to dissolve quickly when a solvent is applied (a.k.a. your nail polish comes off faster - this explains why it takes longer for me to take off my polish when I use Seche Vite, because it doesn't have any), and dries to form a thin coating on the nail.

Nitrocellulose is found in pretty much any nail polish, including top coats and base coats - the only products I've found so far that didn't have nitrocellulose were Seche Vite and GOSH Fix Base Coat, which I found very interesting. (You can see my document with all my polish and treatment ingredients here.) If you remember, I wrote in my post on GOSH Holographic that I found it to work just as well over Seche Vite as over GOSH Fix Base Coat, and I suspect that the absence of nitrocellulose may make for a good base for holographic polishes. I also wonder if the absence of nitrocellulose in Seche Vite makes it shrink...I may try the GOSH base coat over polish to see if it does the same thing.

Here's a list of some other film formers found in nail polish: Cellulose, Cellulose Acetate/Cellulose Acetate Butyrate, Diethylhexyl Adipate, Ethyl Tosylamide, Hydrolyzed Collagen, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Nylon Fiber/Nylon, Phthalic Anhydride/Trimellitic Anhydride/Glycols Copolymer, Polyacrylic Acid, Polyethylene Terephthalate, Polyvinyl Butyral, Styrene/Acrylates Copolymer, Sucrose Acetate Isobutyrate, Sucrose Benzoate, Tosylamide/Epoxy Resin, Tosylamide/Formaldehyde Resin

That's all for today! I'm not sure how often I'll be doing this series - probably about once a week. Here's your recap on nitrocellulose.

• Nitrocellulose is the primary film former in most polishes.
• It helps make your nail polish come off faster when you use remover without affecting wear.
• The absence of nitrocellulose may make polishes a good base for holos.