I’ve been wearing nail polish a lot since I’ve been a teenager. About 12 years ago, when I was in my late 20s, I started developing very swollen, inflamed, itchy eyes regularly. At times it was so bad, I could literally pull the skin off my eyelids. I would also develop random exzema patches on my neck and chin sometimes, but the eyes were by far the worst.
To cut a long story short, after seeing numerous dermatologists and running all sorts of allergy tests (all negative) and basically using steroid cremes on my eyes for years, I finally figured out by myself that the eye inflammation was a reaction to nail varnish on my fingers. I am fine having pedicures, but if I use nail varnish on my fingers I will without fail have swollen eyes within 24 hours.
I have now not worn nail polish on my fingers for around 10 years, bar 3-4 times when I thought I’d found a particularly allergy-friendly, “21-free” varnish. Sadly, same problem every time. I have just tried a colorless varnish two days ago, and woke up with swollen eyes and bumps and lumps all over my eyelids and the bottom of my eyes. I’m so angry at myself, but it’s also got me thinking: despite the so obvious correlation, I can not find anything on the Internet about this kind of allergy. Ie a reaction to nail polish around the eyes, and nowhere else (ie fingers).
Does anyone else suffer from this?
And does anyone know of any nail varnish that wouldn’t cause this reaction? The problem is that I don’t know which component I am allergic to. It’s also unclear whether it’s the fumes I am reacting to, or the touch. I am a little itchy sometimes when people around me use nail polish or nail polish remover for a long time, but then I do have pedicures in nail salons regularly and without problems mostly.
I do miss coloring my nails. I know there’s a lot worse, but just curious if there’s anyone else out there?