I have no intention of doing this myself, but I saw some photos on Facebook of someone's bearded lizard with painted toenails and I was curious. Apart from the look of the thing (I'm not in favour, personally, but it's clearly opinion based!) I was wondering if this was safe or not. Could it damage your lizard?
Personally I see at least two possible hazard areas:
- the nail varnish itself being toxic and either being absorbed through the nails or swallowed
- the nail varnish flaking off and posing a choking hazard, particularly for a smaller reptile like a gecko
If toxicity is a problem, are children's nail varnishes less toxic? And if it is all right to use nail varnish on a reptile, how would it be safely removed? Leaving it to flake off could be a problem if the lizard eats it, but I would think any commercial nail varnish removers would be more of a problem than the nail varnish itself.