Do UV Nail Lamps Emit Unsafe Levels of Ultraviolet Light?
Do UV Nail Lamps Emit Unsafe Levels of Ultraviolet Light?

Three Experts Rebut Claims that UV Nail Lamps are Unsafe for Skin
A recent report incorrectly claimed that UV nail lamps are a source of "high-dose UV-A" and also inaccurately compared UV tanning beds with UV nail lamps. The report, "Occurrence of Nonmelanoma Skin Cancers on the Hands After UV Nail Light Exposure" (MacFarlane and Alonso) 1 , overestimated the exposure of client skin to UV light emitted from UV nail lamps and improperly characterized the effect of these lamps on the hand.

Testing

In preparation for our study, we tested many UV nail lamps to determine which had the highest UV output and, as expected, found the nail lamp with the highest output was one designed to utilize four 9-watt UV bulbs. We also decided to test a popular uv nail lamp designed to utilize two 9-watt UV bulbs. The purpose for testing both lamps was to determine how exposures vary across the range of UV nail lamps with the goal of providing information that would apply to the majority of salons and situations. The selected two bulb UV nail lamp was chosen and tested because it is a popular brand and representative of other UV nail lamps within the two 9- watt UV bulb category. The selected four 9-watt UV bulb nail lamp was chosen because it had the highest measured UV output of any UV nail lamp tested. No attempt was made to test UV nail lamps utilizing only one UV bulb, since the overwhelming majority of UV nail lamps use two, three or four UV bulbs. The UV nail lamps selected for testing are likely representative of more than 90% of the UV nail lamps used in salons.

Lighting Science, Inc., of Phoenix, AZ., is a fully equipped, completely independent scientific testing laboratory that specializes in the development and testing of many types of illumination devices, including those that emit UV light and Lighting Science is not in the business of manufacturing or selling UV nail lamps. The two selected UV nail lamps were submitted to Lighting Science in brand-new condition. Highly sensitive UV detectors were placed where client hands would normally reside while inside a UV nail lamp. These detectors accurately measured the amount of UV-A and UV-B light emitted from each UV nail lamp. To ensure a proper comparison, Lighting Science also used the same test equipment to measure the UV-A and UV-B light found in natural sunlight. A discussion of these measurements and results is presented below.
Discussion

The MacFarlane and Alonso report made several errors and misstatements concerning artificial nails products and how they are applied. The most notable involves the improper estimation of UV exposure to the skin by UV nail lamps, resulting in a faulty report conclusion. It is incorrect to conclude that putting a hand into a tanning bed with twelve 100-watt UV bulbs is the same as putting that hand into a uv nail lamp with four 9-watt bulbs because: 1) tanning bed users typically use these devices more often and for much longer periods than seen with nail salon services, 2) the authors mistakenly assumed that UV bulb "wattage" is a measure of UV exposure to the skin, when wattage is actually a measure of energy usage, 3) the authors erred significantly by relying solely on UV bulb wattage to estimate the actual amount of UV exposure to skin, and 4) they neglected to consider that UV light reflects many times inside the tanning bed and these internal reflections further increase UV exposure to skin, again demonstrating that MacFarlane and Alonso approach to estimating UV exposure to skin is not valid. Their comparisons to UV tanning beds simply doesn t make sense logically or scientifically.
The UV testing performed by Lighting Science used proper scientific techniques and equipment to measure both UV-A and UV-B radiation in terms of milliwatts per centimeter squared (mW/cm2), which is a measure of how much UV light falls upon each and every square centimeter of skin (about 1/8 square inch). It is important to understand that UV-B is considered by many to be more potentially damaging to skin than UV-A, which is why nail lamps rely on special UV bulbs that contain internal coatings designed to filter out most of the UV-B light.

It is important to note that clients visit a salon for UV gel nail application or maintenance twice each month and that each of their hands are placed into the UV lamp for intervals of two minute or less, for a total of 6-10 minutes. In this report, we will always assume the highest level of exposure: 10 minutes per hand, twice per month. http://www.nailartsqueen.com/category/UV-Light.html
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