Mani Mishap

Can nail polish remover go bad? You know, expire? Outlive its usefulness or something?

My mom had nail polish remover, same bottle, never refilled my whole childhood. It always removed the polish, though.

Maybe it's the namby pamby good for you kind of remover I got. It's purple. Also store brand. I used it a couple of weeks ago and it seemed fine.

Last night I decided to remove my marginal manicure and do something simple but clean and neat to show off my brand new, beautiful ring. I rubbed and scrubbed and twisted and gripped until my fingertips were pruny. I practically had a carpal tunnel flare up and this morning, having washed my hands maybe 4 times since the remover incident, my fingers still smelled like remover. However, the polish? Not so much removed.

I decided not to even wear the shiny new ring for fear of attracting attention to my fingernails which now sport scraggly smears of 2 week old nail polish that will not come off. This has never happened to me before. Wearing polish for like 6 weeks and having it look scraggly and awful, yes, but being trapped in a bad manicure despite industrious good intentions, not so much.

On my way home I'm springing for the name brand, old school, flammable, singe the polish out from under your nails and scorch your lungs in the process stuff.