🙋🏽‍♀️ Hands up if a fun manicure is one of your favourite things about having time off work! It is definitely part of my annual leave ritual. Whilst there isn’t actually any strong evidence that wearing nail polish increases the risk of infections it’s still very much frowned upon in the hospital. I was once shoo-ed out of the operating theatre by a very formidable theatre nurse because I had a rouge noir mani in preparation for a wedding that I was attending that weekend. I didn’t like to tell her that a study published in 1994 did not demonstrate any difference in the amount of bacteria on the hands after scrubbing prior to surgery when comparing unpolished nails, freshly‐applied nail polish (less than two days old), or old nail polish (more than four days old). More recently the ‘Glitz & Glamour randomised trial’ (LOVE the name 🤩) showed there was no difference in post-op wound infections when comparing nail polish wearing surgical staff with those with natural nails. To be honest, I’m not really one for arguments so for now I’m keeping my red nails a part of my holiday routine ❤️ Refs: Wynd et al. (1994) Bacterial carriage on the fingernails of OR nurses. AORN Nolan et al. (2022) The glitz and glamour randomized trial: the effect of fingernail polish on post-caesarean surgical site infection, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology