How To Clean Nail Polish On Skin

My Top Tips for Getting Nail Polish Off Your Skin – Painlessly!

How to Get Nail Polish off Your Skin

We've all done it, haven't we? No … not that!

I mean, we've all spilled nail polish – felt that sinking feeling as we watched it pool, moving in a slick, sleek unstoppable river towards the lip of the table, and … over the edge onto the floor. Followed by the frantic clean up, in the process getting the stuff on our new jeans, our hands and in our hair.

How to remove nail polish from skin

If you have a bottle of nail polish remover or acetone – awesome, but what if you used the last of it for a super cool manicure and forgot to replace it?

Of course the best trick for removing nail polish from your skin is not to get it on your skin in the first place, but for all us normal people here are several hacks that I've discovered – and they do actually work!

Rubbing alcohol is your best choice for a remover, and it can also be used for poorly conditioned nails, as it possesses antibacterial properties.

If your cupboard is empty of rubbing alcohol, look for anything i with a high alcohol percentage, such as:

Perfume
Hair spray
Deodorant spray
Body spray
Vodka
White vinegar mixed with lemon juice

Soak a cotton pad in your weapon of choice and hold the pad on the polish for a few minutes to soften it. Next, carefully dab the offending patch until it vanishes. Depending on how thick the patch is, you may have resort to rubbing with the alcohol soaked pad, but be careful not to make your skin sore.

These alcohol based products are also effective at removing a manicure without using nail polish remover, although this involves soaking your nails in the liquid for up to 20 minutes. The polish should lift and you can very gently peel it off. Avoid picking or scraping the polish as this can really damage your nail bed.

If you lack any of these items, there are several others you can use instead:

Toothpaste – using an old toothbrush, brush the toothpaste over the polish, wait a few minutes and wipe. This should effectively remove the polish
Top coat – yes, really! Apply a layer of top coat over the polish, and immediately, before it has a chance to dry, wipe it off with a cotton pad. I honestly don't know how this works, but it does!

Going back to our original accident, our hands might be polish free, but what about the nice new jeans? How do you remove nail polish from clothes without remover?

Soak the marked area with rubbing alcohol and brush or wipe the polish in circular motions
Hydrogen peroxide can be used to remove the polish from fabrics – but because it can sometimes bleach the color, do test it first on an area that doesn't show. Dab the area with a cotton pad soaked in hydrogen peroxide, then again with a clean cloth. Repeat this process until the mark is removed
Spray the area with hairspray or fly repellant and brush with an old toothbrush, using circular motions

Whichever method you use, wash the garment afterwards, and your jeans will look great again.

Now for the carpet. Removing nail polish from carpets without remover is just as simple, and uses the same products. However, if you have a thick patch of liquid, this needs removing first. Carefully use an old blunt knife, or the side of a spoon to scrape it onto some paper towels, before you start to clean up the remaining marks.

There's not a lot to be done for the polish in your hair, other than to:

Claim you're experimenting with a new look
Deny all knowledge
Boldly state that 'you're just jealous you didn't think of it first' and walk away, head held high
Cry

Lastly, one little trick that is used by those supremely smug people that know everything and do it all perfectly involves petroleum jelly. Carefully apply this around your nails before you use polish, and the jelly stops the polish adhering where you don't want it to.