essie goes vegan

As of the end of last year, essie is proud to say it is only producing formulas that are vegan and free of eight potentially harmful ingredients traditionally found in nail polish.

The brand has said farewell to ingredients such as toluene, dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, camphor, ethyl tosylamide, xylene, triphenyl and phosphate, as WWD reported. 

essie's reformulations have been in the works since the beginning of 2018, focusing on its original namesake line, its Gel Couture Longwear franchise, and its Treat Love and Color line.

“We have consumers that know exactly what our colours look like, so we had to hold ourselves to the highest standards for performance,” said essie general manager, Carolyn Holba. “That’s why it’s taken us several years to get here. There was a lot of testing done.”

essie's vegan, eight-free status will be a pillar of the brand’s communications going forward.

“Consumers will increasingly see that communication in an in-store environment, digitally and wherever consumers are interacting with the brand,” said essie, Maybelline and Garnier U.S. president, Alanna Mcdonald.

“It can be quite a confusing environment for consumers, but our point of view is that we will only communicate free-of, when those ingredients have been traditionally included in nail polish."

"Our commitment is to transparency," said Mcdonald.

Click here to view the essie range and to download hi-res images.