With our current heatwave, it’s time to dive into the impacts the sun has on our nail colour.

For starters, surprisingly, sunscreen can ruin our manicures! Although it protects our skin from the sun, it can soften nail polish. Some of the ingredients use to dissolve sunscreen are also in acetone-free nail polish removers meaning those ingredients in sunscreen have the potential to remove your nail polish. Many sunscreens and insect repellents contain a product called DEET which is one of the main causes of colour fading and patchiness.

Fortunately, not all sunscreen lotions share this problem so to find out which ones do, test it before doing your nails. You can apply a bit of your nail polish on a bit of glass (either onto your nail polish bottle, or your mirror) and after it has dried, apply a bit of the sunscreen onto it and if it becomes a little sticky, then avoid rubbing the sunscreen onto your hands. To make it easy, just apply the lotion all over your body using gloves. As much as we love a perfect manicure and lovely painted nails, do not let that prevent you from applying sunscreen!

With extensive exposure to the sun, your polish is likely to fade, which is why we would suggest avoiding light pink and coral shades. Try something brighter for your colour to stay perfectly despite the weather.

Something else to look out for is cleaning products and even swimming pools/spas. Chemicals such as chlorine can affect the colour on your nails so it is recommended that you thoroughly wash your hands straight after to minimise the fading.