Nail polish can leave annoying stains. Learn here how you can easily remove nail polish from clothes.
Once you have painted your nails, you are incapable of action for quite a while and if you make unfavorable movements, you will quickly have some of it in your clothes. Helpful household tips for removing nail polish from your clothes are available here.
Removing nail polish from clothing: Act quickly
In order to successfully remove nail polish from clothing, one must act quickly. The longer the nail polish can dry on the garment, the more stubbornly it sticks to the fabric and the more difficult it is to clean it successfully. If the stain is still very fresh and the nail polish is still liquid, you should dab the affected area with a damp cloth. But only dab, do not rub, otherwise the nail polish stain will become even more unsightly.
Removing nail polish from clothing: The best household tips
With nail polish remover you get the nail polish off your nails, you can also use it to remove it from textiles. Most of them contain acetone and this is exactly what helps with dried nail polish stains. Before you use nail polish remover or benzine on your clothes, look at the fabric of your garment. If it contains acetate, triacetate or modacrylic, you should not use nail polish remover.
Under no circumstances should this type of garment be treated with petroleum ether, acetone or any other solvent. Acetone is a highly flammable solvent that can dissolve the fabric. So you can remove nail polish from clothes, but you can also remove the area of your blouse and that would be too much of a good thing.
Removing nail polish from clothing: Clean with acetone
You can treat clothes as silk, linen, cotton or jeans without hesitation. Basically, you should try out how your clothes react to the nail polish remover on a small area before you do so. Proceed as follows:
- If you don’t have or don’t want to use a nail polish remover with acetone, you can also buy pure acetone in the drugstore for about three euros.
- Place the garment on a clean towel or a few kitchen towels.
- Using a cotton swab soaked in nail polish remover, carefully apply it to the appropriate area.
- Carefully dab the stain with the cotton swab so that no more varnish can penetrate the fabric.
- Move the towel under the garment again and again so that it absorbs the liquid.
- Repeat the dabbing until the nail polish no longer rubs off onto the towel.
- Wash out your garment under cold, clear water.
- Put the garment in the laundry and wash it as usual.
Removing nail polish from clothing: Alternative methods
- If your garment does not tolerate acetone, you can treat it with hydrogen peroxide. To do this, apply the hydrogen peroxide directly to the stain and rub it with a piece of kitchen paper to remove it.
- Instead of nail polish remover you can also use normal cleaning alcohol or white spirit in the same way. However, test this on an unseen area of your garment before you use it.
- A simple trick to remove nail polish stains from clothing is hairspray. To do this, you spray some hairspray on a toothbrush and brush the nail polish out of your clothes.
- You can also clean your favourite item with a stain remover.