Are nail treatments, gel and acrylic safe during pregnancy?

The verdict

Manicures are safe in pregnancy. Polish, gel and acrylic all sit on a keratin plate that absorbs almost nothing into you, and no health authority tells pregnant women to avoid them.

One gel ingredient is a genuine exception, and it is a live regulatory event rather than a theoretical worry. TPO - trimethylbenzoyl diphenylphosphine oxide, the photoinitiator that makes gel cure under a lamp - has been classified in Europe as a category 1B reproductive toxicant. It has been banned from cosmetics in the EU and Northern Ireland since 1 September 2025, and is banned in Great Britain from 15 August 2026. It remains legal in the United States.

Read that classification carefully, because it is being widely misreported. It is a hazard classification based on animal studies, not a finding that a manicure harmed anyone.

Why nails absorb so little, and what the real exposure is

The nail plate is dead, tightly packed keratin, and it is a poor absorption route for almost everything - which is why treating a fungal nail infection through it is so difficult. Polish and gel sit on top of it and cure into a polymer. What reaches your bloodstream from an intact manicure is negligible.

The exposure worth managing is airborne, and it is a salon problem more than a client problem. Acrylic monomer, solvents and dust are inhaled, and a technician spends 40 hours a week in that air while a client spends an hour a month. ACOG lists nail and beauty salons among workplaces more likely to expose you to toxic chemicals and suggests discussing it with your obstetrician. If you work in a salon, ventilation and a dust extractor matter far more than which polish you choose.

What TPO actually is

TPO absorbs UV or LED light and triggers the chain reaction that turns liquid gel monomers into a solid film. In 2015 the EU's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety concluded it was safe in professional UV-cured nail gels at up to 5%. Nothing about that assessment has been disproved.

What changed is chemicals law, not cosmetics evidence. In 2024 TPO received a harmonised CMR category 1B classification for reproductive toxicity, drawn from high-dose animal studies. Under the Cosmetics Regulation, a CMR 1A or 1B classification triggers automatic prohibition in cosmetics unless a manufacturer applies for a derogation with a fresh safety assessment. No derogation request was submitted before the deadline. So TPO was prohibited by operation of law, and the European Commission's own guidance is explicit that the earlier safety opinion predates the classification rather than being contradicted by it.

So do not read the ban as evidence that gel manicures have been harming pregnancies. It is a precautionary system working as designed.

What to do about it, and the rest of the ingredient list

• TPO: in the EU and Northern Ireland it is already gone from the shelves. In Great Britain, products containing it cannot be placed on the market from 15 August 2026, and stock already on the market may continue to be made available only until the end of 14 February 2027. In the US it is unrestricted. If you want to avoid it now, check the ingredient list for Trimethylbenzoyl Diphenylphosphine Oxide - reformulated gels typically use TPO-L or alternative photoinitiators.
• HEMA and di-HEMA trimethylhexyl dicarbamate: the most common cause of gel allergy, and the reason for peeling, lifting and itchy nail beds. Both are restricted in nail products to professional use only in the EU and Great Britain, with mandatory labelling reading For professional use only. Can cause an allergic reaction. This is an allergy issue, not a pregnancy one, but pregnancy skin sensitises more readily.
• Methyl methacrylate (MMA): the FDA removed products containing 100% MMA monomer from the market in the 1970s through court action after reports of fingernail damage, deformity and contact dermatitis - but, in its own words, no regulation specifically prohibits the use of methyl methacrylate monomer in cosmetic products, and it is still used occasionally. The tells are a very strong odour, enhancements that are extremely hard to file, and product that will not soak off in acetone.
• Formaldehyde in nail hardeners: hardens the nail but frequent use makes it brittle, and it can irritate and sensitise skin. Listed as formaldehyde, formalin or methylene glycol.
• Toluene and phthalates in polish: largely reformulated out of the three-free and five-free products that now dominate the market.
• UV lamps: exposure per manicure is brief and far below tanning-device doses. To reduce it further, fingerless UV gloves or sunscreen on the backs of the hands cost nothing.

If you have already had gel nails

Nothing follows, including if the gel contained TPO. The ban is prospective and about product supply, not about removing cured gel from anybody's nails. Cured polymer is not the liquid monomer that carried the classification, and nobody tests or monitors the exposure from a set of nails.

You do not need gel removed early. Soak it off when you would have done anyway, and have it removed rather than picking it off, because picking takes layers of nail plate with it.

Things worth a GP or pharmacist: redness, swelling, itching or throbbing around the nail folds after a gel service, usually acrylate allergy and typically worse with each subsequent set; green or dark discolouration under a lifted enhancement, which is pseudomonas; and any nail that is painful, separating or oozing. Pregnancy does its own thing to nails - faster growth, more splitting, more ridging - and none of that is the manicure.

Where the guidance genuinely differs

This is currently one of the sharpest legal splits in cosmetics, and it changes again within weeks of this page being written.

The EU and Northern Ireland: banned since 1 September 2025. Commission Regulation (EU) 2025/877 added TPO to Annex II of the Cosmetics Regulation, the list of prohibited substances, following its category 1B reproductive toxicity classification under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/197. The ban covers supply, distribution and professional use, and salons were required to stop using existing stock rather than work through it. Because the EU Cosmetics Regulation applies in Northern Ireland, products containing TPO have not been legal there since the same date.

Great Britain: banned from 15 August 2026. A statutory instrument made on 12 January 2026 adds TPO, as entry 1745, together with 15 further CMR-classified substances, to Annex II of the Great Britain cosmetics regulation. That provision comes into force on 15 August 2026, and products placed on the market before then may continue to be made available only until the end of 14 February 2027. Until 15 August 2026, Great Britain's retained Annex III still permits TPO at up to 5% in professional artificial nail systems - so the same product is lawful in London and unlawful in Belfast. The gap between the EU and GB dates exists because the two run parallel but separate chemicals and cosmetics systems, not because they disagree about the science.

The United States: no restriction. TPO is legal and unrestricted in the US, in both sale and professional use. The FDA's nail products guidance addresses acetonitrile, formaldehyde, methacrylate monomers, methacrylic acid, phthalates and toluene, and does not mention TPO or pregnancy. The regulatory philosophies are genuinely different: the EU and GB prohibit cosmetic ingredients automatically on hazard classification, while the US acts on demonstrated injury.

Canada: no pregnancy rule, ingredient controls only. Health Canada's Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist restricts and prohibits named substances in cosmetics on general toxicological grounds, with nothing directed at pregnant users.

So the honest summary for a pregnant reader is this: the manicure is fine, and where you live determines which photoinitiator is in the bottle.