Little girls with painted nails

Isabel wants to be a princess. She thinks that princesses should paint their nails in beautiful colours. So she started bugging me to buy her nail polishes.

At first, I disagreed and told her that little girls should not paint their nails as it is not good for them. But after some constant pleading, I finally relented and brought her to Sasa to buy her 4 bottles of nail polishes for RM10.



She immediately made me paint her nails as soon as we got home. Being a Sunday that day, I told her that she has to remove it before she goes to kindergarten the next day as the teachers do not allow students to paint their nails. And of course, she refused to listen. She was too mesmerized by her beautifully-painted nails.

I thought, it's ok, the teachers will reprimand her. Let's just leave the job to the teachers. But to my surprise, the teachers did not even mention anything about her nail polish to her! So Isabel proudly came home to tell me that her teachers did not scold her and that she can continue painting her nails.

It has been a few months now since the first time she painted her nails. She doesn't paint it all the time, just occassionally when remembers it. However, something keeps bugging my mind that nail polishes are not meant for little girls. So I went online to check it out. Some sites say it's ok as long as the child does not bite their nails and ingest the nail polish. Others say that little girls should not paint their nails at all as nail polishes contain ingredients that are harmful to them. I also saw some sites where they sell toxic-free nail polishes for children. But each bottle costs around USD8. Some are selling at GBP8!! They are simply too expensive once you convert it into RM!

So what do you think? Should I stop painting Isabel's nails until she is much older? Or do you think it is ok for them to have their nails painted? If not, at what age do you think they can start painting their nails?