January 28, 2012

Foiled!

I want to get this up before midnight, but I don't think that's going to happen. I really wanted to walk through the foil method for glitter polish removal, because honestly it's changed my lifelong opinion on glitter nail polish.

Here's what you'll need:


  • Aluminum foil (maybe about 9" from the roll) cut into 10 pieces
  • 10 small cotton balls
  • Nail polish remover
So the basic idea of the foil method is to keep the acetone from evaporating before you have a chance to remove all the glitter. It also seems to soften up the glitter by soaking it in the nail polish remover. And I know 10 cotton balls might seem like a lot, but seriously if you consider how many you would go through normally trying to rub the glitter off (it took 8 when I removed Revlon Facets of Fuschia), 10 is a reasonable number. You probably don't even have to use that many, if you sort of pull the cotton balls in half - as long as it's enough to cover your nail.

So first, you soak the cotton ball in nail polish remover as you would normally, and place it on one of your nails. Then you take a piece of foil and wrap it tightly around your finger. I find it's easiest if you wrap it around lengthwise first, and then fold it over the edge of  your finger, making sure the foil is crimped tightly around your finger.

And then you just keep going for the rest of your fingers. I usually only do one hand at a time, since it's pretty much impossible to do the other hand while one hand is wrapped up in foil like this:



You can always reuse the foil, too, if you're concerned about waste. After you're all wrapped up, you just wait for 5-7 minutes or so, and then pull the foil pieces off one at a time while applying pressure and a slight twisting back and forth motion.

This is what it generally looked like after I pulled one off:


There's still a little bit left, but I chalked it up to my poor pressure application once I got to the end of the nail. But, NEVER FEAR, that last bit of glitter came off a lot easier than expected. I just re-used the cotton ball from inside the foil piece.

With equal pressure to all parts of the nail, you can get something that looks more like this:


Literally blows my mind every time. Here's a satisfying cotton ball picture:


Ugh...SO SATISFYING!

And so, by this point, after the most satisfying glitter removal ever, clean-up is as easy as crumpling all the foil into a little ball and tossing it into the garbage!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I really wanted to see what the glitter jelly sandwich manicure would look like with a pink jelly polish. I totally planned to swatch it out tonight with Revlon Grapefruit Fizz, but I got home way too late from church, thanks to the ultra slippery roads. It "slushed" all day today, only to be followed by bone-chilling winds and a cover of snow. It was kind of ridiculous...I felt like I was driving on an ice rink. I actually missed the turn onto my street because I couldn't brake fast enough to make the turn safely, and I was only going 20km per hour!

Anyway, hopefully this is useful to somebody (anybody!) who reads this. :)

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