How to Make Your Pure Acetone More Moisturising

The problem with normal nail polish remover for me was that it was sometime hard to remove darker or glitter polish and that was the reason why I switched to pure acetone. However, pure acetone can be very drying to your nails and cuticles. I haven't really seen that much of an effect but some people have complained about their nails flaking after using pure acetone.

Then, I came across this video (linked at the bottom of this post) on youtube, that shows how to make pure acetone more moisturising! It's actually really simple too! All you need to do is add some glycerin! Glycerin can be used as a moistursing agent and it is in fact present in many of our moisturisers, soaps and skin care products.

Case in point, here's the ingredients list of my Marks and Spencer hand moisturiser.

Glycerin being the second ingredient on the list. I read somewhere that if the ingredient is higher up on the list, it's present in the greatest amount in that substance. Hence, glycerin being the second on the list should indicate that it is safe to be used in acetone and will help keep your nails moisturised at the same time!

I managed to find a bottle of glycerin as NTUC Unity and it costs $4.80 for 120ml, which is really more than enough for mixing with your pure acetone. In fact, all you need is a few drops because there is a maximum amount of glycerin you can add into the pure acetone and if you add anymore, it will not dissolve, because glycerin is only partly soluble in acetone. However, if you do happen to add too much glycerin, you can add a few drops of water to dissolve it entirely.

So, here are the ingredients to making a more nail and cuticle friendly pure acetone!

My hugeass bottle of pure acetone from PNC and some glycerin!

I didn't really want to add the glycerin directly into the whole bottle because I wanted to test it out first so I poured out some pure acetone into an empty nail polish bottle I had lying around. And then I squeeze just a tiny amount of glycerin.My advice would be to add a little first and if it dissolves entirely, add some more, rather than add too much and having to use water to dissolve it. Adding water will make your pure acetone less concentrated and may make the acetone less effective.

If you add too much glycerin, this is what you're gonna see. Glycerin sitting at the bottom of the bottle, not dissolving no mater how much you shake it.

Hope you can see the small amount of glycerin that just refuses to dissolve. It looks like an air bubble.

But if you add just the right amount, or if you add a few drops of water in the case of too much glycerin added, you'll get this!

Nothing as the bottom of the bottle!

And when you're done, you'll get an acetone that will still do a fantastic job at removing tough polishes but also, an acetone that your cuticles and nails will thank you for! TADAH!

After mixing in the tiny amount of glycerin used, I realised I'll never finish the bottle if I only use it to  mix with acetone alone. So I referred to the label on the bottle of glycerin and it said that it can be used for moisturising fry, chapped skin so I decided I shall use it as my "cuticle oil" to keep my very very very dry cuticles (as you've seen in countless pictures already) moisturised.

My cuticles are feeling a tiny bit softer and I hope with longer usage they'll look better!

Hope this post was useful for you if you're finding pure acetone a little too harsh on your nails!

 

*The youtube video can be found here and you can check out her more detailed blog post here to read up more and see pictures!