Long nails don’t work on touchscreens. An experimental polish could help

Long nails don’t work on touchscreens. An experimental polish could help Skip to content Subscribe today Every print subscription comes with full digital access Subscribe Now Menu All Topics Health Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology View All Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes View All Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment View All Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics View All Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology View All Magazine Menu All Stories Multimedia Reviews Puzzles Collections Educator Portal Century of Science Unsung characters Coronavirus Outbreak Newsletters Investors Lab About SN Explores Our Store SIGN IN Donate Home INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM SINCE 1921 SIGN IN Search Open search Close search Home INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM SINCE 1921 All Topics Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology Tech Computing Artificial Intelligence Chemistry Math Science & Society All Topics Health Humans Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology Recent posts in Humans Health & Medicine Amid vaccine policy whiplash, here’s how a pediatrician talks to families By Aimee CunninghamMarch 20, 2026 Health & Medicine GLP-1 microdosers are chasing longevity By Jamie DucharmeMarch 20, 2026 Archaeology A new study questions when people first reached South America By Tom MetcalfeMarch 19, 2026 Life Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes Recent posts in Life Space How realistic is Project Hail Mary? 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By Tina Hesman Saey and Carolyn GramlingMarch 20, 2026 Space One possible recipe for life on Titan is a bust By Tina Hesman SaeyMarch 11, 2026 Astronomy A strange ‘chirp’ in a brilliant stellar blast points to a magnetar By Jay BennettMarch 11, 2026 News Chemistry Long nails don’t work on touchscreens. An experimental polish could help The polish registers as touch by disrupting the screen’s electric field An experimental nail polish could make it easier for people with long nails to use touchscreens. BongkarnThanyakij//iStock/Getty Images Plus By Skyler Ware 3 minutes ago Share this:Share Share via email (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Share on X (Opens in new window) X Print (Opens in new window) Print A newly formulated nail polish could one day let people activate touchscreens with their fingernails. When pressed to a screen, the polish disrupts the screen’s electric field, which the device registers as touch. While the formula isn’t commercially viable yet, it could allow people with long nails to use them like styluses. “This is huge, because it shows that functional behavior can be embedded invisibly into everyday cosmetic materials,” says Shuyi Sun, a computer scientist who has studied cosmetic biosensors and now works at the Association of California Nurse Leaders in Sacramento. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. Touchscreens, such as on smartphones and tablets, are typically made of glass coated with a thin, transparent layer of electrically conductive material. That layer creates a small electric field across the screen. When another conductive object, such as a fingertip, contacts the screen, it disturbs the electric field. The device registers that disturbance as a touch and can detect the point on the screen where it occurred. But nonconductive materials — like a fingernail or the fabric of a glove — don’t distort the field, so they don’t register on the screen. People with long nails must use the pads of their fingers to type because they can’t use their nails. “It’s really hard to use your phone,” says Manasi Desai, an undergraduate student studying chemistry and biology at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport. Changing which part of the finger people type with can cause typing errors, at least until users adjust to the new angle. To remedy this common inconvenience, Desai and her research adviser, organometallic chemist Joshua Lawrence, mixed several different additives into commercially available clear nail polish. Two of those additives, ethanolamine and taurine, each resulted in a clear polish formulation that, in a blob held with tweezers, could activate the touchscreen. While ethanolamine has some toxicity, taurine is a common dietary supplement that occurs naturally in the human body. “One of our major goals was to make it clear and colorless, so that you could apply it over any manicure or even on your bare nails,” Desai says. Desai shared the findings on March 23 at the American Chemical Society’s spring meeting in Atlanta. The modified nail polish uses acid-base chemistry to activate the touchscreen, the team suspects, though more research is needed to confirm. When in contact with the screen’s electric field, the added molecules probably shuffle protons between themselves, moving just enough charge to affect the field and register as touch. The lacquer isn’t ready to hit the shelves just yet, Lawrence says. Right now, painting the polish on a fingernail doesn’t leave enough additive behind to activate the screen. In future work, the duo plans to focus on improving the formula’s performance in thin coats on fingernails, possibly by getting more taurine into the polish. Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us at feedback@sciencenews.org | Reprints FAQ Citations M. Desai and J. Lawrence. Modification of nail polish formulations for conductivity to opera