Our Valentine’s Day was marred by the spillage of quite possibly the worst liquid you could spill on carpet.
I’d been using vases to house my nail polish collection and discovered they made perfect bookends for the books on my dresser. The arrangement had been working fine for a few weeks but for whatever reason yesterday my books must’ve been unstable; I closed a drawer and chaos ensued. I watched in slow motion (it seemed to me) as books slid toward both ends of the dresser, knocking off both vases and making lots of noise in the process. Once everything settled and I thought the worst was over, I smelled what you never want to smell unless you’re actually painting your nails (and even then I’d rather avoid it).
Was I lucky enough to have broken a clear polish? Or at least a taupe neutral that might blend into the carpet? Nope, it happened to be a purple, and incidentally one of the most expensive polishes I own, not to mention one of my absolute favorites. And I’m not talking about just a couple of drops on the carpet – it was at least half the bottle. I ran for paper towels and whatever solvent I could get my hands on first while Mark ran to Google. Based on tips we found online, I used a rotation of non-acetone polish remover, carpet cleaner, glass cleaner, and vinegar. I can’t say for sure what worked the best since I kept rotating them out but I know the polish remover worked well since it seemed to pull up the most polish on the towel I was using. The spill was between the wall and the carpet, and whatever combination of solvents I was using (or perhaps it was the polish itself) took the paint off the baseboard, so that will need to be repainted at some point.
I worked on it for about half an hour before I’d seen enough progress to encourage me to stop. The good news is once the small section of the wall is repainted, you’ll barely be able to tell there was a spill at all since it blends right into the crevice between the wall and the carpet.
We did have to spend the night on the futon though since the spill was at the head of the bed, and the fumes of the polish and solvents were enough to drive anyone away! How romantic.
Has anyone else spilled polish on the carpet and had success getting it up? I’m curious what else I could have used that may have worked faster.
3 comments:
hey heather...I've never spilled nail polish on a carpet before. I HAVE spilled nail polish remover all over a wooden dresser, and I definitely wouldn't recommend that either!
I feel bad you lost your favorite purple nail polish in the ordeal...it wasn't OPI, was it? I get a cosmetology discount at Ed Wyse (who knew massage therapists were included in cosmetology?), so I get a pretty good price on OPI polishes there. Let me know if you'd like to replace it :) I think they cost me $4.50 or something awesome like that.
Hope you're well!
It wasn't OPI, it was actually butter London. That's a pretty awesome discount you get though, wow! Did the remover spill strip off the finish from your dresser? I think that's what may have stripped the paint off my wall... oops!
yup, that's exactly what happened. a twenty-year old scar on my dresser from when my sister & I would paint our nails as kids :)
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