Hello fellow nomads,
A couple of days ago I wrote about a new polish that I absolutely love, the Goldleaf top coat from L'Oreal's Color Riche nail polish line. For the sake of the post, I painted my nails all different colours and used the gold leaf top coat on all of them. Make no mistake - although it's a 'gold leaf' polish, it definitely falls under the category of glitter nail polishes when it comes to ease of removal, as I found out. Forget nifty express nail polish remover pots (it just shreds the sponge - sadface), don't even think about your traditional nail polish remover and cotton rounds (oh the mess), there's a surefire way to remove your glitter nail polishes without resorting to a hammer and chisel. I thought I'd share it with you here, in case it will help anyone else.
In your kit you will need:
- Tin foil
- Cotton rounds
- Scissors
- Pure acetone (can't be substituted for normal nail polish remover, unfortunately. I bought mine online or you could find it at beauty supply stores)
Simple really!
Step 1.
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| Step 1: Cut! |
Start by cutting some strips out of tin foil - best to be on the generous side here, you don't want to be faffing around with one-handed tinfoil origami later. Also cut some fingernail shaped pieces out of cotton rounds. These are actually better on the small side; the pieces shown above are a little too big and ended up getting in the way. I normally cut these into half again.
Step 2.
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| Step 2: Prepare! |
Prepare a surface to work on - acetone is strong stuff and you don't want to spill it near anything it could damage. Here are my before nails, resting on an old placemat I'm using to make sure I don't strip the varnish off my coffee table :-/
Step 3.
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| Step 3: Soak! |
Soak the cotton wool pieces in acetone and put them aside. I rested mine on the top of the bottle, that way they didn't make my placemat soggy!
Step 4.
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| Step 4: Wrap! |
Put a piece of soaked cotton wool on top of each nail, and secure it in place using a strip of tin foil.
Step 5.
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| Step 5: Keep wrapping! |
Here is what your wrapped nail should look something like. Now just repeat for all the other nails. It can get a little amusing as you run out of useful fingers, which is why it's good to start with plenty of foil! If you can find a helper, this is ideal.
Step 6.
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| Step 6: Rest! |
Once you've wrapped all your nails securely, settle down and leave them for somewhere between 3-5 minutes. You want to leave them long enough that you don't have to scrub at all, but not so long that they ruin your nails. To stop me interfering, and also because I like to be occupied at all times, I like to do this whilst listening to my favourite current affairs show via the Triple J app.
Step 7.
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| Step 7: Unwrap! |
After the allotted time, remove each of the wraps from your nails. The colour and the glitter should all come off with minimal to no scrubbing required - if yours is stubborn, put them back on and leave them for a bit longer.
Step 8.
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| Step 8: Recover! |
Your nails will probably be a bit upset by this treatment so make sure you wash your hands immediately and apply an intensive moisturiser. Here are my hands before I have taken this step, so you can see the pure unadulterated results. There is still a little bit of colour staining on my nails, but that's because I didn't wear a base coat (naughty). Just goes to show, even with less than 24 hours of wear, polishes can still stain without a base coat! However, staining aside, you can see that every last scrap of glitter has been removed from my nails and they are ready for a bit of TLC.
So there you have it; my foolproof and failsafe way of removing glitter and glitter type nail polishes, including gold leaf!
-Rachel
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