Honeybee Gardens Water Colors Nail Polish
Posted on March 28, 2008 by
It’s not feeling like spring around these parts. There’s a few inches of snow on the ground and I’m kind of bummed about it, so I decided to paint my toenails as a pick me up.
After last week’s tip about getting a no-polish manicure, I got a few questions about eco-friendly nail polish. I picked up a bottle of Honeybee Gardens Water Colors Nail Enamel in Risque, a lovely wine colored shade.
It went on well, in thin coats that were smooth and even. The color is bold and saturated and there’s a nice glossy sheen to it. The best part: No Odor. Even after sniffing the bottle directly, I could barely smell anything at all.
Honeybee Gardens is a neat company.
“Honeybee Gardens products are created entirely of natural materials. You can actually pronounce our ingredients! We reuse and recycle as much as possible and, perhaps most importantly, we DO NOT test ANY of our products on animals (those are strict orders from our dachshund ‘Ginger’, ten pussycats, ‘Pekoe’ the lovebird, ‘Tortuga’ the turtle and ‘Dim Sum’ the Chinese hamster)!”
And this nail polish is eco-friendly enough to be a great beauty splurge. It’s water-based, odor-free, and doesn’t have formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl phthalates, or FD&C colors, and comes off using rubbing alcohol, vodka, or Honeybee’s No Odor remover. Honeybee Gardens does a great job of explaining their products on their website.
“Without getting too technical, let’s explore the fundamental differences between solvent-based and water-based systems. Solvent- based polishes are simple solutions of nitrocellulose resins in strong solvents. Nitrocellulose is used because it forms a very hard film easily as the solvents evaporate from the base. These harsh, bad-smelling solvents, are then also used to remove the polish by dissolving the film. By contrast, water-based polish uses an emulsion resin in the form of billions of very small particles suspended in water. As the water evaporates, the particles touch each other and form a hard film which is no longer soluble in water. At first, it may seem that these systems are similar, the only difference being the carrier base. But they are in fact as different as night and day. One cures by reversible solvent evaporation, the other by creating a tightly knit film. One is easily dissolved, the other not so easily. Several states are beginning to regulate VOCs (volatile organic compounds) emitted by nail polishes and nail polish removers. WaterColors Nail Enamel has very low VOCs.”
It’s still probably better to go polish free, but it’s not a bad way to go if you just can’t stand the idea of bare nails. They even have matching lipsticks, if you are so inclined.
Thanks for the review, I never wear nail polish, but I have a daughter who would think this was a real treat.
I just looked at the color swatches. They have quite a nice variety! And I cannot ever go polish-less, so this is a great find!
So glad you found some … where did you get it? I can do no polish on the fingers, but I have a weird thing about keeping my toenails polished.
I have the same weird thing about my toes. I’m okay with it in the winter, but not in the summer. I found the polish at our local natural foods store, but you can order online. I wish they had a where to buy section on their site, but they don’t seem to.
Thank you for letting us know about this! What do you use to take it off?
Honeybee makes an odor free remover, or you can use rubbing alcohol or vodka to remove it. All three options sound a heck of a lot better than acetone, right?
Thanks for this allie! I was just going to paint my nails last night with some old, non-eco-friendly nail polish. Upon opening the bottle, I thought better and put it away.
Plus, I looked at my plain, “ugly” toe nails…and decided to keep on loving them as they are. It’s hard. Poor feet. They get an ugly wrap from most people. And for me, I’ve got this added bonus of having ingrown toenail issues on my big toes, so there are these little slivers of nail that look a little funky on each toe. I disliked looking at them and would hide it with nail polish.
Finally, after about a year or so of not wearing nail polish, I can look down at my little toes and feet and not think they are gross.
Um, yeah, tangent here.
Thanks so much for this post! I will definitely be buying some new summer polish and this is exactly what I was looking for.
Erikka, that was an awesome tangent.
Rach — glad I could help!
I use the polishes/think they’re great! I found them on EWG site about 6 months ago. I like my toe nails painted in the summer…here in Texas always in sandals. No smell/great staying power considering how little of the bad stuff is in them.
I find this nail polish to be really difficult to remove, but other than that I love it. I guess it also seems to take a long time to dry completely, so I paint my nails before going to bed at night.