Push for healthy nail salons finds success
“I realized we need to bring the voices of the community there … to really articulate what was really happening, what workers were experiencing on the health side,” said Liou, development director of Asian Health Services, a clinic and outreach program in Oakland’s Chinatown where staffers first took note more than a decade ago of how many nail-salon workers were dealing with cancer, headaches, miscarriages and other health problems.
Since then, the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative that Liou co-founded has led a California effort to reduce the toxicants that salon workers touch and breathe. Cities and counties taking part in the program certify salon owners who voluntarily ban suspect ingredients and nail products and who provide proper ventilation, gloves and masks for workers.
The health complaints voiced by the country’s more than 400,000 nail-salon workers, mostly immigrants from Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea and other Asian countries and many with limited English or political experience, have gotten more attention over the past decade.
California’s voluntary program stands out for the local government certification and for giving salon owners and workers the say on what health measures salons could best afford, as well as the training and encouragement to speak out on their health concerns.
Beauty product trade groups and chemical makers deny the ingredients targeted by healthy-salon programs, including formaldehyde and other chemicals known or believed to cause cancer or other harm, are dangerous at the levels used in products.
Regardless, leading manufacturers already have removed many chemicals most cited by critics, said Lisa Powers, spokeswoman for the Personal Care Products Council.
Overall, these ingredients provide a small and harmless part of what’s in nail polish, said Linda Loretz, the council’s chief toxicologist.
“A chemical gets a bad name in a very simplistic way,” as opposed to risk-based science, Loretz said.
Critics counter that the country’s scientific and medical communities have failed to study any long-term threat from the industrial compounds.