From The Straits Times    |

Image: Corbis

Anyone who’s ever tried to paint their nails at home should be able to relate to this. Of course if you’ve gone your entire life so far without spilling a bottle of nail polish, I salute you.

If you’ve ever tried to get rid of a nail polish spill on your dark stained wood floors or furniture and have used acetone nail polish remover, you’ll know how big a mistake it is. The first time I spilled nail polish was on my mum’s wooden dressing table. I was eight; and panicking, poured nail polish remover on a tissue and tried to wipe it off. Of course the nail polish came off, but so did the entire top coat of wood stain, leaving an ugly light patch behind. So much regret. Acetone is like bleach, guys. Bad for wood!

A trick I encountered online, is using sugar. Granulated white sugar seems to be the best according to consensus (I think castor sugar would work best). This only works if you deal with the spill as soon as possible, because it still needs to be wet in order to mix with the sugar crystals. The sugar kind of absorbs the nail polish, turning it into dried up little clumps that you can brush away.

I suggest just using your fingers to brush the sugar into the polish instead of a tissue or paper towel. Whether this still leaves behind a stain will probably depend on the kind of wood you’ve got. If it’s got enough of a coating that the polish isn’t absorbed into the floor, there shouldn’t be a stain.

The next time you knock over or drop a bottle of nail polish, try this out and let us know if it works!

Find your nails are not looking so great? You might be ruining them sub-consciously! Read about the four ways we could be damaging our nails daily.

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