Anyone heard any reason gel polish is worse than regular polish??

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Something that has me miffed is that there were supposedly "numerous complaints" about some of us new hires' nails made to our nsg supervisor by senior staff. It became a big to-do... no acrylics, gels, shallacks, and the list went on. Paint is apparently ok. It just can not be a longer lasting gel manicure I guess. I thought the whole thing really pointed to how petty and childish some "senior staff" can be. FWIW, I have heard that acrylic nails can harbor more bacteria, so I wasn't surprised about the issue with those. But, has anyone heard any reason gel polish is worse than regular polish??

But can anyone actually point to a study that shows no chip manicures harbor infection causing germs?

I have absolutely no interest in other peoples "beliefs" or "opinions" that they do.

I want actual studies or facts.

No, there are not adequate studies on the topic. I have read some studies supporting the idea that gel & shellak (sp?) are less likely to harbor bacteria than real, unpainted nails. I will not bother to try to find it on the internet b/c I start a 12 hr shift @ 0645.

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People, hear me out. I cannot control what I wear to work. I watch what I say. Let me have this one freedom of keeping extremely short gel nails covered with the color of my choice while at work. P.S. It's plum this week, & I love 'em!

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T

I did a swab for my micro class under my own natural nail (at least a 1/2 inch nail) and found staph and strep; we have to remember that most of our bodies have these bacteria and it is very possible to transfer them when working with out patients.

under your NATURAL nail!

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Gross? Come on. Picking your nose & not washing your hands after toileting are things that are gross. You likely spend $ on things I would consider a waste of $; I wonder how "gross" they are.

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Honestly, I prefer my nails unpolished/no gel, clipped really short. The hospital is a nasty place and do you really want all of those gross microorganisms underneath your nails?

You have plenty of organisms harboring under your unpainted, trimmed nails right now. I'll be you $20 I'm right. No evidence to date suggests that short, gel nails harbor more bacteria.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

It's way too early in the morning for a heated debate about fingernails, which is pretty funny if you think about it. If my employer has any policy at all regarding nails, I've never heard of it. Doesn't mean the policy doesn't exist somewhere though. Over half of the nurses and CNA's wear the gel shellac's and a few of the CNA's have acrylics that really are longer than they should be though nobody has ever been told they need to take those off. I am in the group with the gel polish. This stuff does not come off, it's great! I used to polish my own nails at home and redoing them every day or two because the polish chipped or flaked was a pain. Now I pay somebody a reasonable small amount [$20.00] every two weeks and I don't have to worry about my nails. Can't say as I'll bother researching if gel polish harbors more, less or the same amount of bacteria as regular nails.

Some places do go WAY overboard with ridiculous policies though...no polish over 4 days old?? So who exactly are the nail polish police that monitors this?

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

First off, non-polish wearer here.

Seems to me any policy that is supposedly related to patient protection & patient outcomes (infections & all) should be based on solid evidence. Using evidence from acrylic nails seems a little feather-legged to me. They are very different. If leadership wants to claim that gel polish should be forbidden based on evidence that chipped polish harbors infection, then forbid ALL polish, but forbidding gel polish without specific evidence sounds like poor science to me.

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Look on the CDC site. It should have articles on it.

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
Look on the CDC site. It should have articles on it.

it doesn't. Not specific to gel polish.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
under your NATURAL nail!

I know. ;)

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.
Look on the CDC site. It should have articles on it.

Just because I'm in a good mood, I'll go right now & search my university medical library. I haven't had time before, but just for grins & giggles.

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.
Just because I'm in a good mood, I'll go right now & search my university medical library. I haven't had time before, but just for grins & giggles.

So off a quick search; I got no relevant hits when I searched "gel nail" AND infection. Same for "gel polish" AND infection.

There are quite a few hits on artificial nails and infections. In these articles, some do specify that they defined artificial nails as anything applied to nails other than regular polish. They did include gel polish as "artificial nails". In the studies (most very poorly powered and many with non-probability sampling plans), there were definitely increased infection rates among artificial nails and some mentioned how the subjects with gel nails were included in the group with "artificial nails".

I see a problem with this (blame my current run through a nursing science and advanced statistics course). The issue that could be raised is that including artificial acrylic nails and gel polished nails in the same group makes this an overly heterogeneous group. Generalizing the finding that artificial nails harbor more infections would be questionable science because these groups were included together (acrylic & gel polish). It could have both artificially increased the risk of gel nails and artificially decreased the risk from acrylic nails.

Well, that's the kind of critique my stats professor would want to hear anyway.

I can provide references if requested but I"m not disputing their results, but rather their methodology.

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