EcoLiving Ideas

By Chryso D'Angelo on Apr 25, 2012

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Welcome to my beauty column! While I normally devote this space to a few different brands in one product category each month, I couldn’t resist sharing the details of a new nail polish line developed especially for little girls called Piggy Paint: Natural As Mud.

The line is reportedly “water-based, non-toxic, odorless, hypo-allergenic and non-flammable” and includes a rainbow of 21 punchy colors, including Girls Rule (shimmery purple), Twinkle Toes (sparkly silver), and Sometimes Sweet (bright red). Fun stuff!

The polishes were developed by Melanie Hurley, a mother of two young girls, who was concerned about the safety of conventional nail paint.

“One day while we were painting nails over a foam plate, my daughter dropped a glob of her solvent-based polish onto the plate,” says Melanie. “Shortly after, the paint began to bubble and “ate” through the plate!”

Melanie looked in dismay at the hole in the plate and decided to test all of her other “kid” polishes on the foam.

“Within minutes, all of the solvent-based polishes began to bubble and eventually left big holes in the plate,” says Melanie. “From that day on, I decided that any flammable substance that could eat through foam was unacceptable for my children’s fingernails, which would inevitably end up in their mouths.”

The pro-active mom got to work—even developing base coats, topcoats, and remover. Today, her inventions are making rounds at Hollywood pamper parties for the young set. Celebrity moms like Jessica Alba, Tori Spelling and Marcia Cross use it on their little girls’ delicate digits.

The line has not been reviewed on the Cosmetics Safety Database since the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics stopped accepting new signers in November 2011. However, we asked four elementary-age girls to try it out and share their findings!

The testers:
Caitlin, age 8, NYC
Talia Rose, age 9, NYC
Julianna, age 10, NYC
Alexandra, age 13, NYC

The colors:
Sea-quin (pastel turquoise)
Pocketful of Posies (bright matte pink)
Glamour Girl (purple shimmer with silver glitter)
Glitter Bug (multi-color sparkle)

Smell:
Caitlin: It’s strong, but different from regular nail polish. They should try making it smell fruity.
Talia: Not a strong as other nail polish, not as "toxic" smelling.
Julianna: When applying the nail polish you could (like with other nail polishes) smell chemicals, but when the nail polish has dried, there is no scent.
Alexandra: This nail polish has virtually no smell!

Packaging:
Caitlin: The saying is good-"Natural as Mud". It makes you know it's natural.
Talia: The Pig is really cute—it makes you want to buy it!
Julianna: The pig is a good idea to draw attention to it especially because it is a new product. If I walked down the aisle and saw the pig, I’d walk over to find out more.
Alexandra: The packaging of pig is very cute and clever. People in a store would walk by and be curious.

Colors:
Caitlin: A lot of nail polishes you find are usually too dark or too light, but these are just in the middle.
Talia: I love the colors! They are so bright and fashionable. I alternated between pink and blue on my toes and blue and purple sparkle on my fingers.
Julianna: I love the pretty pink one (Pocketful of Posies). It is very shiny to begin with and when the light catches it, if it is even possible it became shinier and brighter. The silver (Glitter Bug) looks awesome on top of the pink, but on its own it’s barely there.

Ease of Use:
Caitlin: The polish went on very smoothly—not as thick and sticky as other polishes. I wanted two coats, though.
Talia: It dried really quickly. I liked that. It’s very good if you are in a rush. You just have to wait five minutes and go–no fans needed! I was happy with one coat.
Julianna: It went on very easily and had no clumps at all. It took two coats for me to be satisfied with the color.
Alexandra: The nail polish was a little streaky and clumpy at the ends of the nail. About three coats were applied before I was satisfied.

Note: Our testers agreed that Glamour Girl (the purple sparkly polish) was not as smooth as the others. It needed more coats and did not go on as evenly.

Lasting power:
Our testers tried the polish on without a base coat or topcoat, so it did not last too long past their mani/pedi. Therefore, we would suggest investing in a base coat and topcoat.

“The next day, all I did was play on a Trampoline. By the end of the day, I had some chips,” says Julianna. “The day after I put the nail polish on, it started to chip and the color lost its shine a bit,” says Alexandra. “I think it did wear off faster than other polishes.” Talia’s color faded fast, especially since she jetted to Florida to play in the sand and surf just a few hours after applying the polish, while Caitlin’s pedicure lasted into the following week.

Overall:
Big thumbs up! No pun intended!

Piggy Paint is sold at Walmart stores and specialty boutiques nationwide ($3.98 and up).