As a green parent, I am sometimes torn between allowing my daughter to explore aspects of beautification she sees in our culture and promoting her natural beauty. Even though I don’t wear makeup or nail polish, when Grandma visits, my daughter is drawn to her fancy nails. I finally broke down and bought my daughter nail polish at a local health food store. I don’t want to be the green parent Nazi, which I already tend to be about organic foods and plastic toys, so finding a less harmful nail polish was essential. According to Ideal Bite, several safer nail polishes exist. Pthalates in nail polish, also found in plastic toys, can cause birth defects. In fact, the Environmental Working Group advises “women of childbearing age to avoid using nail polish that contains a chemical that has been shown to cause birth defects in laboratory animals.” “We think that women of childbearing are should avoid all exposures to dibutyl phthalate when they’re considering becoming pregnant, when they’re pregnant or when they’re nursing,” Houlihan said.

The Ideal Bite recommends these products:
SpaRitual Nail Lacquer: 72 different hues of vegan, phthalate-free polish ($10).
Honeybee Gardens Nail Enamel

Even these products are not 100% safe. You can check the safety of health and beauty products at the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) website Skin Deep, in which very specific information is given on many alternative and mainstream products. Honeybee Gardens Nail Enamel got the lowest safety concern vote from EWG.