Want A Toxic Manicure?

Want A Toxic Manicure?

Federal regulations allow cosmetics manufacturers to use unlimited amounts of virtually any ingredient in salon products, including those proved harmful to human health.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

Never having had a manicure myself I can’t say that unsafe working conditions for nail salon workers was a big issue for me—or even something that had ever crossed my mind. But then I watched the latest video from Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation which features stories of salon workers who have been working with toxic materials and have developed serious health issues as a consequence.

A new project of the 16 Deaths Per Day campaign, which aims to strengthen support for the Protecting America’s Workers Act (H.R. 2067), the video points out the sort-of unbelievable fact that federal regulations allow cosmetics manufacturers and nail salon owners to use unlimited amounts of virtually any ingredient in salon products, including chemicals linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harm, hormone disruption and other adverse health effects.

 

 

All working people have the right to labor free from exposure to toxic chemicals in their workplaces. Everyone has the right to a safe and healthy working environment. Please sign this petition imploring Congress to support nail salon worker health by supporting safe cosmetics legislation. All the signatures gathered will be delivered to members of Congress.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x