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Every time I sit in a salon chair to indulge my free-spender, girly side, I worry about the risks that the salon environment poses on my health.

“Aren’t you worried about your lungs with all these fumes?” I always ask my manicurist, who always laughs, shrugs, and says something along the lines of “the hustle is real”.

Never once did I stop to think about the ultraviolet (UV) lights emitted from the gel manicure lamps as a risk factor, though.

Well, a new study has shown that exposure to this UV light can actually damage skin cell DNA.

Consider my anxiety sufficiently topped up.

However, while this sounds pretty hectic, experts are saying that it’s not really enough damage that you have to stop going to the salon.

The study, published on January 17 in Nature, found that UVA light from these gel-drying lamps can permanently alter your DNA and mutate human cells.

The researchers exposed cells to 20 minutes of UVA light for three consecutive days, which resulted in 20% to 30% of the cells dying, and three exposures resulted in 65% to 70% of the cells dying.

But this is way more exposure compared to a typical gel manicure, which requires up to 10 minutes of exposure to dry the nail polish, which one typically does only every three or so weeks.

While it is clear that this exposure does negatively affect cells and damage DNA, the researchers note that these experiments might not reflect the realities of human skin, which has additional layers of protective tissue, per Insider:

So although UV lamps used in gel manicures might change a cell’s DNA, the study’s senior author Ludmil Alexandrov told The Washington Post their paper cannot conclude UV light from manicures can lead to cancer.

It’s still not totally clear whether there is a true cancer risk when using gel manicure lamps:

Because gel manicures are meant to be done infrequently, since the manicure lasts longer, the JAMA study’s lead author Dr. Lyndsay Shipp told Reuters the cancer risk is very small. Shipp said she herself will continue to get gel manicures.

If you’re worried, however, a dermatologist at the Cleveland Clinic suggested using sunscreen at the salon.

You would need to put it on after having your nails soaked, though, for proper effectiveness.

Lather me up, sisters.

[source:insider]