Clear nail polish

I put that sh*t on everything

By Morgan Hannah, Life & Style Editor

Clear nail polish might just be my new favourite thing and here’s why:

You can use it for just about anything. I mean it! Yes, its marketed purpose is to strengthen and seal manicures and make your nails look shiny and healthy, but have you ever considered using it to stop a run in your pantyhose? We’ve all been there—too lazy to shave tonight, guess I’ll throw on some nylons. Then your freshly manicured nail punctures those nylons and now you’re throwing out your $10 leg underwear. But with clear nail polish, you don’t have to! Just apply a small dab to the tear and let it dry.

Another unusual use for clear nail polish that I learned from a friend: Making labels waterproof. My friend likes to create her own preserves and canned goods and is very DIY, so it didn’t surprise me when she pulled out a container of clear nail polish and painted over her handwritten jam labels. The nail polish acts as a protective seal and prevents smudging. You can even wash the jars without ruining the labels! Neat!

This clear polish life hack came from my time as a jewellery saleswoman. When working any retail job, it’s always best to wear the products you sell, and I happened to sell both real and fake rings and things. Being on a budget, I bought myself a couple of fake rings and after a shift of wearing them, I noticed my skin would sometimes be dyed greenish-blue, like an odd ring-shaped bruise. My co-worker at the time mentioned that she used clear nail polish to avoid fake jewellery stains. Paint a coat or two on your ring as a protective seal and you won’t have to worry about faux bruises from your faux jewellery anymore.

Have you ever needed glue for your latest crafty art project and couldn’t find any? Instead of going to the store and spending money, why not see if you have any nail polish lying around and take advantage of its adhesive properties? Nail polish works great as an alternative to glue. If your crafts involve sewing but it’s a pain in the backside trying to thread that needle, dip the end of the string into clear polish and then try! It’ll be too easy.

Here’s a nail polish hack I tried out on my fiancé’s car the other day. I found a four-centimetre-long scratch on the driver’s side door of the car, and instead of taking it in for an unfairly priced fix, I just used some black nail polish (for this hack, clear polish won’t do much—try to match the colour of your polish to the colour of your car) and filled in the scratch!

If you can’t find the colour of nail polish you need, say to fill in a scratch on your car, or you want a custom colour for your claws and paws, try breaking off a small piece of eyeshadow, funnelling it into the clear nail polish bottle, then cap it and shake it until the eyeshadow completely dissolves. Bam! Unique nail polish colours in an instant.

I cannot stress enough how much I love this unusual use for clear nail polish: Keeping glitter in place. Everyone can agree that glitter is the devil’s dust—once that sparkly shit gets inside your house, on your clothes, in your car, or on your skin, it’ll never leave. Even after having vacuumed months later, you’ll find the damn sparkles glinting up at you from deep within the fibres of your carpet. But no more, thanks to clear nail polish: Just apply a coat to all your glitter-adorned knickknacks to pin those bad boys down.

Applying a layer of nail polish to screws before using them gives them added durability. My dad has recently started wearing contact lenses, but before then, he wore glasses for a large portion of his life. I can only imagine the frustration of having those tiny little screws in his glasses always getting loose and falling out. By applying a layer of clear polish on top of those screws, he can secure them in place.

Like with stopping a run in nylons, clear nail polish can stop a chip in your windshield from spreading. Of course, this is only a temporary solution and it is important to ensure your safety by fixing a damaged windshield as soon as you can, but in the meantime, just paint over the chip with nail polish and let it dry.

In need of a bandage and unable to find one? Clear nail polish works as a temporary bandage for minor wounds too! Just clean the area and apply a thin layer of polish. There are lots of nontoxic brands out there that work just as well as liquid adhesives and other expensive first aid items.

Wooden furniture can be beautiful but will sometimes splinter. To fix the problem area, slice or sand it down and apply nail polish. You won’t notice a difference.

As you can see, from waterproofing and protecting to sealing and first aid, clear nail polish has many unusual but handy uses. This glossy, transparent, inexpensive, and easy-to-find beauty product has more to it than meets the eye.