As far as beauty goes, 2021 is already shaping up to be a great year for sustainability and ingredient awareness — and Essie is leading the pack. As of the end of 2020, the brand is only producing nail polish formulas that are vegan and eight-free.
A brand representative tells Allure that the eight ingredients Essie will exclude from hereon out are as follows: formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde resin, camphor, ethyl tosylamide, xylene, and triphenyl phosphate.
Essie insists on keeping this list of banned ingredients on the shorter side instead of opting for 10-free or beyond. “We are taking a stance and keeping our ‘free-of’ lists simple and straightforward,” states a press release from the brand. “We will not claim to be free of ingredients that don’t belong in nail polish.”
This reformulation applies to every and all of Essie’s nail polish lines, including Gel Couture Longwear and Treat Love & Color. This doesn’t necessarily guarantee, however, that the Essie nail polish you purchased at the drugstore last month is vegan or eight-free — unless it’s part of the Expressie collection; that line was developed with these new standards already in mind. If you’d like to confirm whether your Essie nail polish has a vegan and eight-free formula, you can contact the brand’s customer service.
But you can rest assured that all Essie products coming out this year and onward will be free of animal-derived ingredients and the eight additional ingredients Essie has vowed to exclude from its formulas. To kick off this new era of Essie, the brand is launching a plethora of brand-new shades across three collections: Dial It Up, Brilliant Brocades, and Not Red-Y for Bed.
Not Red-Y for Bed features nine shades in red, pink, neutral, and blue hues, meanwhile, Brilliant Brocades delivers six Gel Couture shades in deep and muted pinks, reds, and blues. Lastly, the 2000s-inspired Dial It Up collection includes 10 Expressie polishes in hues you’ll recognize from your Internet Explorer days like muted teal and neon yellow-green. All are rolling out in stores in January and are available online now.
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