• Question: how is nail varnish made

    Asked by alicenugget to Jade on 24 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Jade Owen

      Jade Owen answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      Nail varnish has a polymer called nitrocellulose which gives its ‘coating’ characteristics when it dries and to keep it from drying in the bottle a solvent like butyl acetate or ethyl acetate is added.
      Following this, depending on the nail varnish you then get lots of other things added. For example titanium dioxide to help make it stronger, mica to make it sparkly and then other pigments/dyes for colour like iron oxide for yellow, chromium oxide for greens and manganese for violet.

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