Hi all,

Here's my $0.02 worth:

At my sister's wedding in 1980, I was a bridesmaid and was asked to polish my nails to match my dress, which I did. About an hour into the reception, the polish on my right thumb ignited as I put out a cigarette. (I smoked in those days). Since I was in-expert when applying the polish, (and didn't routinely wear polish since it just came off in organic lab), some had run under the nail and extended into the nail bed. I was fortunate that my date had a soft drink in his hand when my thumbnail ignited, and the flames were both above and below the nail into the bed. He grabbed my hand and immersed my thumb, successfully extinguishing the flame, but I had third degree burns under the nail in the bed, and eventually lost the nail. It grew back, after several weeks, and I was fortunate enough not to be scarred or to permanently lose the nail, or the tip of the finger. But, it should be added to this discussion that the polish on ones own nails is also highly flammable, and such fires can also lead to significant injury. It doesn't have to be a polished artificial nail to cause a fire hazard, just the polish does the trick.

Meg

Meg Osterby
W831 County Road K
Stoddard, WI 54658
414-539-1543 (cell)
608-788-7951 (home)
megosterby**At_Symbol_Here**gmail.com
"It's better to be careful 100 times than to be killed once." Mark Twain

My perspective is the microbiologist one, and besides everything else that has been stated,  long synthetic nails pose a source of contamination.   The nail bed is difficult to sanitize with clipped nails.   Longer ones create 10 distinct incubators.   Compound that with the likelihood of piercing gloves,  you now have 10 possible PPE breaches.