Let's Talk Thinner!

Nothing to Disclose

Good morning! I have a little bit different type of post for you this morning. Hopefully this one will save you some money! 

If you have been into polish very long you are probably already familiar with nail polish thinner. It is must have if you have older polish and/or you polish your nails often. You may have heard that you don't need thinner because you can use nail polish remover or straight acetone because it does the same thing. Wrong!! I have been a polish addict since I was a little kid so I have some pretty old polish. While most of my really old stuff is long gone I do still have a few favorites that I still use on occasion. While growing up I heard the "acetone is the same as thinner" bit and one day I used acetone in one of my favorite older polishes because it was getting too thick to use. The acetone completely ruined the polish. I had used acetone in the past and it had worked and not ruined the polish so while it may work sometimes, it doesn't work all the time. Not to mention it's not good for your nails. So, in other words, you need nail polish thinner! I have tried 3 different brands of nail polish thinner and I have found that there is only one that is worth spending my money on, but which one?

Comparison after the jump!

In the photo above are 3 different brands of thinner - Beauty Secrets (the store brand of Sally Beauty), Orly and Seche Restore. 

When I ruined my aforementioned  polish I went to Sally Beauty to get some polish thinner. I had several old polishes that I needed to restore to their normal consistency and I sure wasn't going to use acetone anymore. The only brand that Sally Beauty had when I went was their brand, Beauty Secrets. I bought it, got out all my old polishes and thinned all of them. I checked the consistency of all of them as I thinned them and they were like new. I was tickled pink! The next day I went to use one of them and after polishing 2 or 3 nails the polish started to get thick again. I tried some of the others I had thinned and had the same results. I was so bummed. I didn't know if it was just this brand of thinner or if all thinner did this.  I also tried it in my Poshe top coat which, as with all fast dry top coats, gets thick after using it. Again, it was so-so but not great.

I decided I wanted to try some Seche Restore because I had heard it was the best nail polish thinner. I thought they would sell it at Sally Beauty since they sell other Seche products but I visited multiple locations and I couldn't find any Seche Restore. I did manage to find some Orly brand thinner, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I used it in my Poshe as a test and while it thinned it out better than the Beauty Secrets brand did, it didn't  last long. I didn't even get all 10 nails topcoated before it started getting thick and hard to work with again. 

I headed over to my beauty supply shop and got a  big bottle of Seche Restore. Success! I used it in my Poshe and it thinned it out very well after just a few drops, and it lasts for more than a few nails! In fact, I don't have to thin it again until my bottle of Poshe is about half full, which is the same as when I buy a bottle of brand new Poshe. 

So, while the Seche may be a bit more expensive upfront I highly recommend going with that one. It works and you use less than the other brands so it will save you money in the long run!

I hope this post saves some of my fellow polish addicts some time, money and polish!

Thanks for reading and happy polishing! ♥