IncyWincy

More than once scanners in Shanghai PVG have detected nail polish. Not in any other airport I have come across (over 50). Is it because their scanners can detect flammable liquids?

Boggie Dog

Applied, dry polish or in a bottle?

IncyWincy

In a bottle. That was why I referred to liquids. Thank you.

KDS777

You probably just got hassled because of an over aggressive or rookie agent.

My wife travels with nail polish all the time and never gets stopped. The size of the bottle is less than 100ml obviously, so it should not be an issue.

Did they make you throw it away before proceeding thru security ?

IncyWincy

Not hassled, they were polite and efficient, actually demonstrated with lighter and a small tad of polish (less than for painting a finger nail) that the polish can be used as fuel for lighting a fire.

My question as stated above was/is - how is it that scanners in Shanghai PVG can manage to acurately detect nail polish? Also stated above, I have travelled through over 50 airports and repeatedly so, with nail polish and only in Shanghai PVG is nail polish detected. How?

JamesBigglesworth

The machines include a vapor analysis system integrally? Combo scanners aren't globally common yet, but they have been around for 10+ years. No idea if that's what Shanghai uses, but it's the simplest explanation.

KDS777

I am going to stick with my rookie or overtly aggressive security screener suggestion. I cannot answer technically if airport equipment can detect "nail polish" per say.

More than one item in your personal effects can be flammable, yet the smallest bottle of something, requiring the most unlikely and useless form of application to create a threat, was used to demonstrate this to you.

You were subjected to what we call the "Kabuki Theatre of Airline Security".................

Loren Pechtel

Note the airport: PVG. China doesn't permit flammable liquids, period, even if they are 311 compliant.

Randyk47

Seems to me it could be nothing more than the shape and size of the item. I would think the typical relatively thick glass nail polish bottle would show up quite easily.

IncyWincy

Hi KDS777, Why "Kabuki"? Kabuki is Japanese, nothing to do with China or Shanghai. In any case, flammable liquid is much more dangerous than a host of other substances regularly banned at most other airports, eg, nail clippers.

What would you call the frequent occurrence of confiscating nail clippers at airport security?

84fiero

"kabuki theatre/dance" as used in the context upthread, is a slang metaphor for something that is a meaningless performance lacking any real substance.

IncyWincy

I realize the intention/inuendo.
The Japanese (and others with moral bearing) may take offence.
In any case, my question upthread, what then would be the description for disallowing nail clippers on board?

Randyk47

Nail clippers? I remember early on that TSA prohibited nail clippers in carry on but that stopped years and years ago. Are they an issue in non-US airports?

IncyWincy

Good that you kindly confirmed that TSA prohibited nail clippers. I was asking how this ought to be described if prohibiting flammable liquids is called "Kabuti theatre/dance" upthread.

KDS777

In regards to nail clippers, or anything else, it would be described in exactly the same manner, if the security agent performed a demonstration about it, as had occurred in your case. Geography, or anything else, does not play a part in my description.....as per Wikipedia (which I hate quoting)........ "kabuki can be interpreted as "avant-garde" or "bizarre" theatre"

Pretty much any item of synthetic clothing in a carry on, especially if manufactured in a country where the safety standards are not equivalent to those in N/A, could have had fire applied to it, and it would have gone up in flames just as fast. The detector doesn't pick that up, now does it ?

I had my nail clippers confiscated at security with much apparent drama, albeit some years ago. FWIW.

Coming back to Canada with my Nexus card during the ebola scare a coupe of years ago, we had to answer a bunch of questions at the computer kiosk about our travels, and then take the paper slip it generated to a physical CBSA agent who asked us the same things over again. Kind of defeats the purpose of trusted traveler status without accomplishing anything. It was like 100 AM when I had my turn so I said to the CBSA agent that I objected to this "Kabuki theatre" we were being put thru. He asked why ? I said if this was meant to be a serious vetting of travellers, your instructions would be to review the pages in our passports looking for the entry visa's to the embargoed countries in question, as all of them had visa requirements for entry. Trusting people to answer on a computer was just window dressing for the masses to make the politicians look good. I could tell from the look on his face he wasn't happy with me, but he also didn't say anything.

Living in NA the examples of what we are discussing are varied and many, unfortunately.

Best.