How to Get Nail Polish off Carpet
My daughter, Addie, is in her terrible twos. No, really. They are terrible. When I turn my back for two seconds, she likes to destroy things. I could give you plenty of examples like the time that she got out of bed at 11:00 at night (I found her at 11:30) and she had gone into my craft room, found the markers and colored all over her body. I think she likes the shock factor or something. Anyway, I could give you about a million of these examples, but that is not what this post is about. I wanted to show you her latest and greatest mess I like to call “the time that Addie painted my kitchen rug with nail polish” and thought that maybe you would be interested in how to get nail polish off carpet in case you are ever in the same boat.
(yes, that is the EMPTY bottle of polish that my child used on the carpet)
When I smelled the nail polish (because I totally smelled it before I saw it) I immediately got some baby wipes and pulled as much excess paint as I could up off the carpet. You don’t want to rub because it will rub the paint into the carpet instead of keeping it up on the top of it. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing because it was a $200 rug that she had painted and I really didn’t want it to be ruined with the things that I was going to use to clean it up.
I knew I couldn’t use nail polish remover because the acetone would remove the color from my rug, and I didn’t have a non-acetone remover at home. The stain sat for several hours before I got to it because I wanted to think it through. I finally settled on Rubbing Alcohol. It dries quickly and doesn’t have any color removing or staining properties.
Eureka! We found a winner! I poured the rubbing alcohol on the stain and using a microfiber cloth gently began scrubbing at the polish. It came right out! Who knew?! Check it out. This is the before and after. I took the before using my iphone and the after I used my nice camera to make sure that you could really see that the stain is GONE!
I hope this helps! If you have kids, nieces, nephews or kids that hang out at your house, you might just want to pin this for later in case you ever need it. Good luck!
Oh my gosh. I am stressing just looking at this! I am so glad you got it out!
Genius!! So glad you found a way to get rid of the polish without ruining your rug!
I never would have thought to try rubbing alcohol. Glad it worked!
this is so good to know. That Addie is lucky she so stinking cute!
I am so glad I found this! How scary is it I needed this due to my 10 MONTH old?…. for my friend’s carpet?….
OMG you just saved my sanity! I just tried this (literally 2 mins ago) and I could not be happier with the results! Bright coral red nail polish on a white and light gray rug….thank you thank you thank you!
Wish I had seen this weeks ago, I just replaced carpet because of my 2yr old spilling HOT PINK nail polish on my carpet!! It was new carpet to begin with maybe been down 5months. Thank you for the tip!
Oh no! Those naughty two year olds! Now you know how to protect your new carpet at least 🙂
Interestingly, I found this post due to my Addi (Addison) who just turned 3 decided to paint her toenails and, in turn, dumped 3 bottles of hot pink nail polish onto the cream colored carpet. (In my defense I was in the hospital and dad was supposed to be ‘watching’ them) Going to give this a go, thanks for the post 🙂
Does this work on towels and clothes because I got some on my shirt and tried to wipe it off on a towel.
My grandson just spilled black nail polish!! This worked great! Wow! 🙂
going to give this a go… What is it about hot pink nail polish? It seems to leap out of bottles and onto light coloured rugs! Hope this works!
Thank u sooooo much for this post!! We just had a maroon polish spill on our carpet!! This trick worked like a charms Dan it came completely out!!
Acetone is a strong chemical in many nail polish removers and can damage your carpet, so proceed with caution.