Nail Polish | Ingredients With George Zaidan (Episode 4)

What's in here? What does it do? And can I make it from scratch? It's the stuff inside your sun.

Ingredients way back in the day, nail polish was actually pretty simple. The Egyptians used henna and the Chinese used a mixture of egg white, beeswax, gelatin, vegetable dye, this is a beet, and gum arabic. Today, we're talking about regular old nail polish, which it turns out is neither regular nor that old. Anyway, compared to the nail polish of the ancients, nail polish of today has a lot more ingredients because it has to do a lot more things.

First and foremost, the color has to speak to some deep longing within your soul. Second, that color can't fade. Third, you need to be able to brush it onto your nail evenly and smoothly. Fourth, it needs to be thin enough to form a film without globbing, but fifth, it needs to be thick enough to not run everywhere. Sixth, it needs to stick to your nail. Seventh, it needs to dry hard and glossy and keep that appearance. Eighth, it needs to be somewhat resistant to water and oil and whatever else might mess up your manicure. Ninth, it needs to avoid chipping. And tenth, it needs to dry somewhat quickly.

Whoo, that is a lot of stuff! But basically, we just want our nail polish to be easier and more convenient than what the Egyptians and Chinese used. So let's break this down.

First up are the coloring agents or the pigments. The pigments are really, really, really tiny particles that are suspended in the polish. Now, the pigments are fascinating and similar to what you might find in a lipstick. We did a whole episode about this, and I will post a link in the description.

Then there are the solvents, ethyl acetate and butyl acetate. Now, chemically, these guys are esters and they evaporate quickly, and that's why you don't have to wait hours for your nail polish to dry. Incidentally, most of that nail polish smell? Esters.

Next up is nitrocellulose, which is a polymer that's made from cotton. Nitrocellulose is what forms that hard film on the outside of your nail. And because of its ability to form these hard films, it's used in varnishes for all kinds of stuff like playing cards or guitars. In fact, in the 1920s, it was used as the base for a lot of car paints, though today's cars use something different.

Anyway, nitrocellulose is also quick drying and pretty cheap, but it actually doesn't stick to nails all that well, and it's kind of brittle. So manufacturers add other polymers, like tosilimide formaldehyde resin (which is not formaldehyde) to make your polish glossier and stick better. And actually, if you see "poly" something something or something something copolymer on an ingredients label, usually that polymer is there to tweak the properties of the polish in a way that makes sense for the particular type that you are buying.

Then there's camphor, which comes from Asian evergreen trees and chemically is a mix of terpenoids. Now, camphor is a plasticizer; it's used to make the polish a little bit more flexible and less likely to chip. And you can actually see this if you take a thin layer of polish and peel it off some wax paper gently. And if you look right there, you can see it's kind of stretchy.

So far, so good. But there are still the conflicting requirements of being thin enough to paint an even coat and yet thick enough to not drip everywhere. Plus, you want your pigments to be suspended in the polish and not immediately settle down to the bottom. Now, part of the way that manufacturers achieve all of these goals is by balancing the amounts of all the ingredients, particularly the solvents, polymers, and pigments to get sort of in the ballpark of the right consistency.

But the other and chemically magical way is by using a molecule called sterile cone iam Hector I or its cousin sterile cone iam bentonite. Both of these guys come from clay and they have this weird but awesome property where solutions of them, if they're just sitting there, will be thick or gel-like, but the second you apply a force, like for example brushing them onto your nail, they get thin.

Now, a lot of foods actually have this property, like ketchup does, for example. And if you're interested, check out the links I will post in the description. Now, check out the description; I will post a link.

And finally, there's benzophenone one, which chemically is similar to the active ingredients in sunscreen. Turns out the sunscreen is not there for you or your nails; it's actually there to protect color. UV light from the sun can actually degrade colors in nail polish, so benzophenone one keeps them from fading.

At this point, you're probably wondering how the hell am I going to make nail polish from natural or even remotely natural ingredients? After all, most homemade nail polish is actually just adding pigments to a premade clear base. So I just... I quit.

So on this one, I'm going to go back to basics, all the way back to the Chinese recipe, which actually is not even a recipe; it's just a list of ingredients, specifically egg white, gelatin, beeswax, gum arabic, and vegetable dyes—in this case, beets that I blended and then strained through a coffee filter.

Now, looking at these ingredients, you would think they are nothing like what goes into a modern nail polish. But chemically, they're actually not that different. So gum arabic is a resin, like nitrocellulose or tosilimide formaldehyde resin; it helps form films. Now, egg white, that's mostly protein and water, but also probably helps form films along with the gum arabic. Gelatin is a thickener, just like sterile cone iam Hector right, and beeswax is a plasticizer like camphor.

So when you look at it like this, really the biggest difference between ancient polishes and modern ones is that the ancient polishes did not have quick evaporating solvents. But that's okay; I'm sure we'll figure something out.

So let's try this! So, because this is a list of ingredients and not an actual recipe, I just made one up. I'm using components from jelly and custard recipes, so we'll see what happens. [Music]

Okay, so there we go, nail polish. I think that's been sitting for a while and now it's ready to test. So I want to take my Q-tip, dip it in here, and a nice amount of color. First test: doesn't really drip, so we're doing good. Actually, that is really good; it's not dripping at all.

So, Cass, that's the first test. Now, mm, kind of liquidy. Alright, too liquidy; it's pooling all over my nail and I can actually see some stuff that's not dissolved. That's probably going to become ting anyway. And maybe if I just leave it long enough and then blow-dry it, something good will happen. Who knows? Let's try this. [Music]

Okay, so this is not coming off on my finger when it's dry, which is a great sign. It is kind of chunky, which doesn't feel that great, but it kind of reflects light in a weird and interesting way, which I don't hate.

Now, the real test is will this come off under water? And there is only one way to find out. Here's some water. Let's do this. I'm just gently rubbing it. It is definitely coming off. Yeah, just like beet dye, it is water soluble. This is absolutely coming off.

So basically, you would be fine until you went to wash your hands. So I give this overall three out of ten. I mean, it's not zero; it painted my nail, but it's basically useless. I might as well have just taken beet dye and put that on my nails. If you guys have any ideas on how to improve this recipe, please let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.

Alright, when Simon you.