Never throw out a polish again

Today's post is dedicated to handful of polishes I threw away back in the mid 1990's. If only I'd kept them to be able to bring them back to life.

Back when I first seriously got into nail polish in late 2009 I remember reading a blog post done by Scrangie about restoring a dried out polish using Seche Restore. It blew my mind. I cringed at all the amazing polishes I had thrown out because they had dried up and become unusable.

Two days ago I was going through my two helmer drawers of Dance Legend polishes and discovered this polish. This was a beautiful blue polish called River of Time from the smoky collection which I showed here. This polish was only a year old, so shouldn't have looked like this, but when I picked it up I realized that the lid wasn't on properly. I figured this would be a perfect time to show you exactly what I learned from Scrangie five years ago.

This bottle is just about totally dry. When laying on it's side the mass doesn't move. Open the bottle and carefully pull the brush out.

Using the dropper that comes with Seche Restore, fill the polish bottle back up to where it would have it's fill line.

Next, insert a wooden skewer and give the solid a stir. This part doesn't take long, but you will see very thick lumps of polish sticking to the skewer. Next I grabbed my tattoo ink mixer and used that in the bottle for about 2 minutes. I then screwed the lid back on and left it for a day. The next day I shook the crap out of the bottle for about 3 minutes. After that, it was a good as new.

You can of course try this with any brand of nail polish thinner (not acetone), but I've only ever done it with Seche Restore, cause it's the bomb! Just remember that Seche Restore contains Toulene, which is one of the bad '3' that is not found in 3 free polishes. So if you add this magical chemical, which turns finicky polish into smooth, quick-drying chemical loveliness, just remember that your polish will no longer be 3 free.