Has anyone had any issues with allergic reactions to Ikon.IQ, Light Elegance, Nailchemy, Lecente or Hayley Winder?
If so, how did the brand respond to your concerns?
No company, even one that develops hypoallergenic products as we do, can faithfully guarantee that everyone with existing allergies won't react. Hypoallergenic products are designed for allergy prevention, not as cure.
The situation is complicated. Firstly, it depends which ingredients they are allergic to, and how many. The more ingredient allergies someone has, the more sensitive their immune system and the easier it is to develop new allergies.
Take the case of someone who develops allergies. Instead of visiting a dermatologist, having a patch test to find out which ingredients they react to, choosing replacement products that don't contain these and then stopping that caused the allergies in the first place, they instead simply change brands.
This strategy may work for a while. Change from standard monomer HEMA-free monomer for example. But unless they changed their behaviour to ensure there is no skin contact with product, they will eventually usually develop new ingredient allergies.
Perhaps at the start, they had 3 or 4 ingredient allergies. After changing brands once or twice, they can now have 10 or more ingredient allergies. Their immune system is now so sensitive, that they react even to hypoallergenic products.
Fortunately, we are able to help many Nail Techs who come to use with allergies, to continue their career. But there will always be cases of those who simply have too many allergies, whose immune system is too sensitive that we can't help.
This is why all NT should avoid allergies in the first place and if they do develop reactions, immediately change to true hypoallergenic products and change their behaviour with the advice from the brand.
And please understand that HEMA-free is absolutely not the same as hypoallergenic. Some HEMA alternatives are also high risk.
True hypoallergenic products won't contain any of the ingredients a dermatologist tests for, will use only ingredients for which there is no proven risk, and also have a product history over years where no customers have reacted.