Have you ever accidentally spilled nail polish on your clothes? Do you feel that nail polish stains are near impossible to remove from clothes?
Cleaning nail polish stains is indeed a hassle. It must feel exhausting to realize that all you wanted was for your nails to look pretty, but now you’re into this uninvited mess. If you have stained your clothes with nail polish, you shouldn’t panic.
There are obviously some great ways to clean these stains. The best one is using hydrogen peroxide.
Hydrogen peroxide is the perfect compound to clean nail polish stains. It has oxidizing properties, due to which it breaks down the color-causing compounds of the stains and proves to be an effective agent to use for nail polish stains.
Due to hydrogen peroxide’s miraculous stain-removing properties, its usage is becoming more and more frequent. Hydrogen peroxide is expected to exhibit a growth rate of over 5.7% from 2020 to 2026.
How To Get Nail Polish Out of Clothes With Hydrogen Peroxide?
Nail polish contains various chemicals, and whenever nail polish stains the clothes, the nail varnish settles in the fabric of your clothes, and the compounds bind to them.
This makes the stains to be very difficult to remove. Hydrogen peroxide has the ability to remove these resistant stains due to its strong oxidizing properties. Here are some ways you can use hydrogen peroxide to remove nail polish stains from your clothes:
#1 Using Hydrogen Peroxide To Remove Wet Nail Polish From Clothes
Whenever you get your clothes stained by nail polish, you shouldn’t let them sit and get dry. Cleaning these stains in a washing machine just won’t cut it. It needs thorough cleaning with an effective agent such as hydrogen peroxide.
What You Need
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- Sponge
- Clean Paper Towel
How To Use
Hydrogen peroxide can work really well with nail polish stains. Here are the steps you can follow:
- Apply hydrogen peroxide directly to the stain
- Let it sit for 10 minutes
- Wet the sponge with cool water
- Dampen the stain and rub it well
- Use a clean paper towel and dab the stain
Things to Keep In Mind
Applying too much hydrogen peroxide or rubbing it without letting it sit might prove to be counterproductive. Some more things you can keep in mind while using hydrogen peroxide are:
- Use a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution. This is the perfect concentration solution easily available on the market.
- You should wear gloves while using hydrogen peroxide because it can be irritative to your eyes and skin.
- Hydrogen peroxide should be used with precaution and should not be ingested in any form or way.
#2 Using Hydrogen Peroxide To Remove Dry Nail Polish From Clothes
Nail polish stains, when dried, are very tough to remove. Nail polish contains nitrocellulose, a polymer when exposed to air, becomes hard.
This is what makes dry nail polish stains so tough to remove. You can use hydrogen peroxide and couple it with another cleaning agent to remove the dry nail polish stains.
What You Need
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- Baking soda
- Hot Water
- Clean Cloth
- Brush
How To Use
Using vinegar with hydrogen peroxide would be a good idea to remove this tough stain. You can follow these steps for effective results:
- Mix hydrogen peroxide with water
- Add the solution to the stain
- Add some baking soda to the stain
- Use a brush to rub the stain off
- Run the stained part under hot water until you’re sure to be rid of hydrogen peroxide and the baking powder
- Check if the stain is clean now. If not, you should repeat the process
Things to Keep In Mind
You should take the following precautions while performing the above-mentioned procedure:
- Use a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution because this is the ideal concentration for your general household use
- Use hydrogen peroxide with caution since it can be irritative to your eyes and skin
- Avoid skin or eye contact with vinegar. Its acidic properties can be damaging on contact.
How Does Hydrogen Peroxide Get Nail Polish Out of Clothes?
The nail polish contains nitrocellulose dissolved in an organic solvent such as ethyl acetate.
The polymer hardens when exposed to air. It contains adhesive agents that help it remain stuck on the nails. It also contains coloring agents derived from organic or inorganic sources.
All of these factors contribute to it being tough to remove.
Hydrogen peroxide contains two oxygen and two hydrogen molecules, due to which it has the ability to form an OH radical. These OH radicals are highly oxidative, and they can work on tough stains to remove them. These OH radicals, once produced, oxidize the compounds causing the stains as well as the adhesive agents.
Hydrogen peroxide immediately acts on the nail polish stains when applied to them. Due to its bleaching and oxidizing powers, it is successful in removing these resistant stains of nail polish.
It not only acts on the color-causing compounds of the nail polish but also works on the adhesive agents that make it easier to remove these stains and restore your clothes to their original form.
Alternative Methods To Get Nail Polish Out of Clothes
While hydrogen peroxide is no doubt one great agent to clean nail polish stains, there are alternative methods as well.
These alternative methods might just prove to be as effective, but they can have some downsides to them.
#1 Use Acetone
The easiest way to remove a nail polish stain is to use the nail polish remover, which predominantly contains acetone. What makes acetone such a good cleaning agent for nail polish?
It is an amazing solvent. Acetone has great dissolving properties, and it can dissolve even the toughest of oils or any other mixture. Acetone is used to remove nail polish because it dissolves the resins of the nail polish varnish, and these resins are the main reason for the staining properties of nail polish.
To remove nail polish stain with acetone, simply use some cotton and apply acetone or nail polish remover to it. Apply it to the stain, and you should find it to be gone!
#2 Soak the Cloth in Warm Water and Vinegar
Another way to remove nail polish stains is to soak a cloth in warm water and vinegar. Vinegar has acidic properties that can help in the dissolution of the stains, such as nail polish stains.
For this procedure, simply fill up a bucket with water with around two gallons of water and add half a cup of vinegar in it. Mix it well.
Now soak the stained cloth in the bucket and start rubbing the stains with a brush until you find it to be lightened or gone. Clean the cloth with warm water to be rid of any vinegar and let it dry.
What Makes Hydrogen Peroxide The Best Option?
The downside of using these other chemical compounds is that they can result in damage to your clothes.
Although acetone is a great dissolving agent, it is harsh and can ruin the fibers of your cloth. It is known to break down synthetic fibers, and thus, you should be careful when using an agent like this.
Vinegar is a good cleaning agent with not really any downsides when it comes to usage on the fabric, except that due to its acidic properties, it can result in fading of colors in some fabrics.
Not to worry, though, do you know what’s better than both of these? You guessed it right; hydrogen peroxide!
Hydrogen peroxide is very soft on the fabric of your clothes and hard on the stains. Its oxidizing properties are responsible for its multifaceted usage.
Its bleaching properties destroy the color-causing compounds, and antibacterial properties rid your clothes of any bacteria or other micro-organisms.
Moreover, hydrogen peroxide is a known effective agent for deodorizing clothes. It is one compound that has all of these useful characteristics that really make one wonder if there is even anything else they need in a cleaning agent.
Conclusion
Nail polish stains are tough to remove because the nitrocellulose, a polymer, hardens as soon as it comes in contact with air.
This makes it a challenge to remove this stain, but we have hydrogen peroxide to do the job. While there are other techniques to clean these stains, they might result in damage to clothes, and they may never return to their original form.
Hydrogen peroxide has oxidizing properties that work to act on stains as well as against bacteria and other micro-organisms. Its effectiveness as a cleaning agent can be doubled when it is coupled with another agent such as baking soda.
This agent acts on the stains by decomposing the color-causing compounds of the stains and lightens them enough not to be visible.
Hydrogen peroxide is becoming more and more common in every household with each passing day. Its diverse properties indeed justify its frequent usage. Do you want to try this agent too? Order your set now and discover its usefulness!
