Finding
After the EU banned TPO, gel nail polish became the fastest-growing product in official alerts
Numbers frozen on 1 October 2026. The nail products page updates daily.</p>
TPO (diphenyl(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphine oxide) is the photoinitiator that makes many gel nail polishes set under a UV or LED lamp. It was classified as toxic for reproduction and banned in EU cosmetics from 1 September 2025 (Regulation (EU) 2025/877), with no sell-through period: products already on shelves and in salons had to go.
The numbers
| Quarter | Nail-product alerts | Of which name TPO |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 Q1–Q3 (before the first TPO alert) | 34 | 0 |
| 2025 Q4 | 64 | 53 |
| 2026 Q1 | 49 | 47 |
| 2026 Q2 | 135 | 133 |
| 2026 Q3 | 2 | 1 |
| 2026 Q4, to 1 October | 1 | 1 |
The first EU Safety Gate alert naming TPO is dated 30 October 2025. By 1 October 2026 there were 235, in 94% of all nail-product alerts in that period. June 2026 alone had 96. Nail products, rarely flagged before, were the most-flagged product type in 2026 so far.
What was flagged, and by whom
- Where they were made: China (70), Italy (51) and the United States (34); 45 records give no origin.
- Brands named most often: Jessie Milano (43), Estrosa (40) and OPI (24).
- Who filed them: Italy's authorities filed 173 of the 235 (74%), then Slovakia (32), Malta (14) and Czechia (14).
- Salons more than marketplaces: none of the alerts names an online marketplace, and only two are marked as sold online.
The pattern
This follows the path of lilial: an ingredient is banned, and the alerts that follow are mostly about stock that was legal a few months earlier. The quiet third quarter of 2026 may mean the stock has cleared, or only a pause in checks; the next quarters will tell.
What this does not show
- These alerts record products that broke the ban. They do not mean any of these products harmed anyone.
- Counts follow inspection effort, and one country filed most of them.
- The US is not comparable here. TPO is still allowed in US nail products, and cosmetics fall under the FDA rather than the US CPSC, whose recalls this site covers.