UV nail salon dryers may increase risk of early-onset skin cancer, study says (2025)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Nail dryers commonly used during gel manicures in nail salons can cause DNA damage and may lead to early-onset cancer, a new medical research study has found.

The study, published in January in the “Journal of Nature Communications,’’ concerns the ultraviolet (UV) radiation given off by the drying lights used in most salons.

“The ultraviolet nail polish drying devices used to cure gel manicures may pose more of a public health concern than previously thought,’’ researchers said in a press release announcing the study results. “Their use leads to cell death and cancer-causing mutations in human cells.”

The devices, referred to by researchers as “mini tanning beds,’’ are a common fixture in nail salons, and generally use a particular spectrum of UV light (340-395 nanometers) to cure the chemicals used in gel manicures. While tanning beds use a different spectrum of UV light (280-400 nanometers) conclusively proven in studies to be carcinogenic, the spectrum used in the nail dryers has not been well-studied.

“If you look at the way these devices are presented, they are marketed as safe, with nothing to be concerned about,” said Ludmil Alexandrov, a professor of bioengineering as well as cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California, San Diego. “But to the best of our knowledge, no one has actually studied these devices and how they affect human cells at the molecular and cellular levels until now.”

In the study, researchers exposed cells from humans and mice to UV light, finding that a 20-minute session led to 20% to 30% of cells dying, researchers said in a press release.

Three consecutive 20-minute exposures made 65% to 70% of the exposed cells die, while the remaining cells experienced mitochondrial and DNA damage, resulting in mutations with patterns similar to those in skin cancer in humans, the researchers said.

The researchers caution that, while the results show the harmful effects of the repeated use of these devices on human cells, a long-term epidemiological study would be required before stating conclusively that using these machines leads to an increased risk of skin cancers.

However, the results of the study are clear, they said: The “chronic” use of these nail polish drying machines is damaging to human cells.

Maria Zhivagui, a postdoctoral scholar and a first author of the study, used to be a fan of gel manicures herself, but has sworn off the technique after seeing the results, she said.

“When I was doing my PhD, I started hearing about gel manicures, which last longer than normal polish,’’ she recalled. “I was interested in trying out gel nail polish, particularly in the setting of working in an experimental lab where I frequently put gloves on and off, to maintain a presentable appearance.

“So I started using gel manicures periodically for several years. Once I saw the effect of radiation emitted by the gel polish drying device on cell death, and that it actually mutates cells even after just one 20-minute session, I was surprised. I found this to be very alarming, and decided to stop using it.”

The idea to study these particular devices came to Alexandrov in a dentist’s office, of all places, the press release said. As he waited to be seen, he read a magazine article about a young beauty pageant contestant who was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer on her finger.

“I thought that was odd, so we began looking into it, and noticed a number of reports in medical journals saying that people who get gel manicures very frequently — like pageant contestants and estheticians — are reporting cases of very rare cancers in the fingers, suggesting that this may be something that causes this type of cancer,” said Alexandrov.

There was no molecular understanding of what the dryers were doing to human cells, he said.

To conduct the research study, three cell types were exposed to two different conditions: acute exposure and chronic exposure to the UV light device.

Under acute exposure, Petri dishes containing one of the cell types were placed in UV nail polish drying machines for a 20-minute session. They were then taken out for an hour to repair or return to their steady state, and then given one more 20-minute exposure. Under chronic exposure, the cells were placed under the machine for 20 minutes a day for three days.

Cell death, damage and DNA mutations were seen under both conditions, according to researchers.

“Our experimental results and the prior evidence strongly suggest that radiation emitted by UV-nail polish dryers may cause cancers of the hand, and that UV-nail polish dryers, similar to tanning beds, may increase the risk of early-onset skin cancer,” the researchers concluded. “Nevertheless, future large-scale epidemiological studies are warranted to accurately quantify the risk for skin cancer of the hand in people regularly using UV-nail polish dryers.”