found this by GMG if that helps....
First off, there is no relationship between an odour and the potential danger level of anything. Carbon Monoxide is odourless, but will kill you. Many products are odourless, but still evaporate (and thus form vapours which is what you breathe in). Ill babble on about that in a moment!
The next thing that is important to understand is the difference between exposure and overexposure. Every chemical (as mentioned previously; a chemical is anything you can see or touch except for light and electricity) has a safe exposure and unsafe exposure level and no chemical is dangerous unless you become overexposed to it.
In this context, when you overexpose an area of the body to a chemical (ingredient) then the body's immune system starts to come into play (nails do not count as they are not living matter!). Depending on the amount of the offending chemical (in this case 'ingredient') and strength of it as a sensitise, the body will slowly and subtly in the beginning, however after each repeated overexposure, it will respond faster and more 'severe'.
In this case, the overexposed area will being to show signs of irritation (redness, temporary burning, etc...). Repeated and continual exposure (even months later) will cause the symptoms of irritation to increase in intensity, eventually manifesting itself as an allergic reaction. Once again, this is because the body's immune system believes that it is 'under attack' by a particular ingredient and responds accordingly. This is really no different than when someone eventually develops an allergic reaction to a metal like nickel or gold (i.e. earrings). Other good examples are latex, poison ivy, perfumes, detergents, etc... The body 'thinks' these are potential pathogens and a threat to the body, so the body 'attacks' the ingredient to protect itself. This is seen as a 'reaction'. It is important to note that this is localised. In other words, swabbing product on their lateral folds wont cause a reaction to appear on their butt. Furthermore, you will only overexpose them IF you get it on their skin IN THE FIRST PLACE AND THEN CONTINUE TO GET IT ON THEIR SKIN TIME AND TIME AGAIN!
To put things into perspective, traditional gels are FAR more likely to cause the body to go into full alert with skin exposure than monomer and polymer systems. There are some exceptions, however no gel is less likely to cause irritation than a L&P system (except for light cured L&P systems and in many cases, odourless L&P systems!). The funny thing to note here is that the odourless systems (gels and odourless/light cured L&P) are FAR more likely to cause irritation as they contain stronger sensitisers! Though not absolute, a general rule of thumb is; less odour means more potential for irritation!
So, skin exposure aside, what about breathing in this stuff? Gels have a substantially lower evaporation rate as they are pre-formed monomers. That doesn't mean they aren't evaporating, it is just substantially lower (most gels still contain monomers as flow modifiers).
When anything (in this case monomers) evaporate, they form a vapour which is what you are smelling. But is your nose a very good gauge on the relative safety of a chemical? Nope. It's a pants gauge.
Your olfactory sense (sense of smell) is over 10,000 times stronger than sight. Your sense of smell can pick up and identify something in the air that is less than 1 part per million (ppm's are how air quality are measured). In this instance, your nose can strongly identify monomer molecules in the air when there is less than 1 for every million parts of air! Can you imagine for a second being able to 'see' a needle in a haystack containing over a million straws of hay?!?
The average nail salon is around 100-200 times below the safety threshold level for exposure to EMA (the key monomer in L&P enhancements). To put that into perspective, your exposure to the safety threshold levels of carbon monoxide on your way to work is potentially higher.
Many, many air quality studies have been done in many parts of the world in nail salons because of peoples 'concern' about the 'dangerous' substances they may be inhaling in the salon. Every single time without fail, they determine that the salon air quality is FAR below any type of level to be concerned with. This doesn't mean that you should not practise proper extraction and ventilation! It just means put things into perspective! For some, a curry house stinks - but it doesn't mean it is going to kill you!
HTHs!
__________________
The Geek
aka Samuel Sweet
