Nail polish in a jar is liquid. From the moment you put it on your nails, it gets hard. How did that happen?

Answer

Dear Fleur,

Thank you for your nice question!

Nail polish, just like paint, contains a solvent. This will also be one solvent named. Solvents allow something that is solid (such as a powder) to be dissolved into a liquid. There are several chemicals that can be used as solvents, but what they have in common is that they can evaporate quite quickly.

So what happens when you put nail polish on your nails is that the solvent starts to evaporate. First, the solvent ensures that the nail polish is liquid, but when it comes out of the bottle, the solvent can evaporate more easily. The polish on your nails will dry out and become solid again. Just remember that you can blow on your nails to make them dry faster. What you do then is blow away the evaporated solvent that hangs above your nails, so that there is more room for new solvent to evaporate.

Moreover, the rule is that it evaporates a little faster if you spread it thinly over a larger surface. The solvent has much more room on your nails to escape to the air. Nail polish can also dry out in the jar if you leave it open. This is only a lot slower because it is protected in the jar. The opening of a jar of nail polish is always made as small as possible, so that as little solvent as possible can escape while you paint your nails.

The typical smell of nail polish is that of the solvent. That’s why you smell it so strongly when you just painted your nails. When your nails are dry, the smell also diminishes, because the solvent is gone.

So, now you look at your nail polish in a completely different way!

Katinka