"Nail polish gives you cancer"

I have not tackled chemical/environmental discussions to date on this blog, I guess I'm still fairly bitter over having been diagnosed with cancer even after a relatively clean life looking after my temple.  I have long been teased by my friends for being a "tree hugger," in my vegetarian days my Sista even called my food "bird seed." I am still quite green-leaning though I have returned to using the likes of aluminum-laden anti-perspirant, Tide pods, and Keurig cups.  Oh and nail polish.  

I have never been a crazy nail diva, just every now and then I enjoy sassing up my manicure for fun.  I even began painting my daughters' nails with chemicals when they wanted to copy Mommy and have shiny nails.  For a few years we used only natural/non-toxic polishes such as Piggy Paint.  But mainly we used whatever brands provided the colours we wanted.

My main polish fetish is for my toes; I like pretty tootsies.  My manicure usually suffers the realities of hard-workin' woman syndrome anyway: dishpan hands, mom-please-open-this, bank teller cash counting (and constant hand-washing), cash office manager paper shuffling and other grocery store perils.  But there are a couple of times per year that I crave a nail design to suit the holiday.  Deep red at Christmas for example, tiny witch and ghost stickers at Halloween, and my favourite for nail decorating: Valentine's Day.  

Ah yes, Valentine's Day.  Honestly I am a romantic at heart, but for me Valentine's Day appeals only to the black of my soul.  Too many fairy-tale let-downs perhaps. Therefore I enjoy a glossy black manicure at Valentine's Day, it's a tradition I can't seem to shake.  

It used to make the gentlemen customers at the bank chuckle... I think they shuddered inside? But they always asked me about it, and comments on the timing of a BLACK manicure on the PINKY RED "holiday" were fodder for many cynical romance jokes at my wicket.  

I think it is what got me through the holiday where everyone else was vomiting hearts all over.  (That is one problem with working a retail or public-facing job, you have to cater to the masses. Sell sell sell!  Well baby I could sell a black heart to a cupid on V-Day.)

As this Valentine's Day approaches, I have felt the pull toward the manicure kit.  I had visited the spa last Saturday for a toe treatment, now my fingernails needed a touching up.  I asked Claire if I could borrow her black and she said "MOM - nail polish gives you cancer!"  UGH  Yes dear, now hand it over, Momma needs a  shine!!  

This is what has made me chuckle all day, my kid straightened me out as to the poor life choice I was making by wanting to paint my nails.  Good for her, I'm glad she is listening (as she absent-mindedly scrapes the rest of the chipped grey polish off her nails while reading her David Suzuki book).

I have decided to leave the issue rest with my teenagers - I learned early with twins to choose my battles.  I harass them enough on the big stuff (which seems to be working all right), so some of the little stuff I leave alone. 

I can hardly argue with them about nail polish when they see me drinking coffee (or other chemicals haha), or cleaning with Windex, or driving a car, or having wi-fi currents pulsing through our house, or burning candles simply for fragrance, or any selection of the life-threatening non-green stuff I do daily... such as breathing, crossing the street...receiving pharmaceutical treatments with residual effects the likes of the Chernobyl disaster.    

A little nail polish here and there isn't going to kill us.  I'm pretty sure it's cancer that's gonna get me, and I already have that so HA.  Malignancies do not grow on nail polish fumes, just like melanoma in the lymph system does not grow from new sun exposure.  Just saying! 

In any case, I will remain on the fence where I typically reside anymore.  I will paint my nails pretty today, but I will be mindful of the compromise I maintain will be our saving grace:  I will use "3-free" polish.  It is available in my favourite brand anyway, O.P.I. always has the funkiest colours, and last year I purchased the perfect shade to compliment the ladybug tattoo on my foot.  

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I have been searching through my old blog documents for a post I wrote a few years ago about Valentine's Day.  If I recall it was a rant... pretty environmentalist-leaning and anti-Valentine's Day candy distribution in schools.  Ahh.. the good old days, simple.  My kids were younger, and my ideals were less complicated. Live and learn.   I can't find the old rant so I guess it was meant to be shared only once.  In it's place I will leave you with a couple of funnies from my old blog photo archives:

                               ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day!  Or should I say, 

Happy Black Nail Polish Day  :-)

(Of course I reserve the right to post a photo on Sunday of the adorable heart-shaped box of chocolates my dear friend gave me - it has a pair of CHOCOLATE LAB PUPPIES on the front of it!  That stuff still gets me... I am definitely going to run with the chocolate lab jokes this Valentines Day.  I didn't say I was against chocolate!)