Are artificial fingernails food safe?
A server sent a question to the FOODSAFE email asking if employers could rule that their employees not wear artificial fingernails on the grounds that they are not food safe. The following advice was supplied by Environmental Health Officers in January 2004. How permanent are acrylic nails and do they tend to fall off or break away? Do soaps and disinfectants react with the glue? Also, is the seal 100% or are there gaps between the nail and the acrylic nail that could allow entry and trapping of microorganisms that would be very difficult to remove? If the answer to any of the above questions was yes, then artificial nails could become a concern the same as with nail polish. At this point, we cannot find a policy in writing that specifically covers finger nails, nail polish or acrylic nails but research article referred to below certainly would be supportive of a foodservice employer choosing to establish a policy, particularly where employees are handling ready-to-eat foods. The alter
