Many of us love the carpets we live on. A carpet serves as an essential part of a home because it provides a warm, soft space for kids to play on. It is where you stretch out after a long day of work or sit down with your family to play a board game. Nothing can be more disappointing than when a spill threatens to ruin your carpet by leaving an unattractive stain. A carpet stain is disappointing because one accident on a small portion of your carpet can cause the entire carpet to need to be replaced. One of the biggest culprits when it comes to carpet stains is nail polish. A nail polish accident can happen so easily. A bottle of nail polish that has been placed on a table can easily be knocked over and spill out all over the carpet. A teenager might be painting their nails while watching television on the carpet and accidentally knock over the bottle. Sometimes just touching a carpet before your nails are dry after painting them with polish can lead to streaks and stains across the carpet. Is there an easy way to get nail polish out of carpet? The good news is that you can probably salvage your carpet if you keep a cool head and take a few steps right away. Take a look at the top tips how to remove nail polish from carpet.
Act Quickly
Don’t give the stain time to set. You’ll want to do something as soon as you notice that nail polish has come into contact with your carpet because the polish will become harder to remove as time passes. Grab an absorbent paper towel and begin carefully and gently blotting any excess polish that has pooled on the carpet. You will need to do this until there is nothing left to come off on the paper towel
Take Care of Dried Nail Polish
You may notice that some of the polish that has spilled is already dry by the time you discover the scene. That doesn’t mean that it’s too late. You’ll want to take a butter knife, spoon or some other type of dull tool and scrape the dry polish from the carpet. You’ll need to work gently to ensure that you don’t cut the fibers of the carpet.
Grab the Nail Polish Remover
Hopefully you already have nail polish remover if you’re using nail polish in your home. You’ll want to use this to try to remove nail polish that is remaining on the carpet after blotting and scraping. However, it’s important not to pour the polish remover directly on the carpet. Pour it on a cloth or towel instead. Go ahead and blot the stain repeatedly. You should start to see some of the stain disappearing right away. Keep blotting until it looks like all of the nail polish has been removed. It’s important to only pour small amounts of polish remover on your cloth or towel. Do not saturate the cloth or towel with nail polish remover during this process. Remover actually contains harsh ingredients that can destroy the latex backing on your carpet and create big problems down the road. What if you don’t have nail polish remover or the nail polish remover you’re using doesn’t seem to be working? You can also try rubbing alcohol as a substitute. Some people also have success with products like hairspray, window cleaner and hydrogen peroxide. However, you need to be careful because these products can sometimes bleach or stain carpets. Using something like hydrogen peroxide to remove stains will only work with extremely light carpets. Putting peroxide on a dark carpet will likely leave light streaks on the carpet.
Treat the Carpet
It is very important to never simply walk away just because it appears that the nail polish has been removed from the carpet. You actually have to treat your carpet afterwards to ensure that the harsh chemicals from the polish remover don’t ruin your carpet. Failing to do this step could destroy your carpet. The good news is that you probably already have everything in your home that’s needed to make a gentle solution for removing nail polish remover from your carpet. Mix some liquid dish detergent with warm water in a bucket or bowl. You should only add a tiny amount of dish detergent. The majority of the formula should be warm water. You should take a moment to read the ingredients on your dish detergent to ensure that it doesn’t contain any bleach or lanolin. Those ingredients could damage your carpet. The next step is to simply blot the area on your carpet where you just used nail polish remover. Don’t apply the solution directly to your carpet. You will want to use a cloth or towel to blot the carpet with the formula just like you did with the polish remover a few moments earlier. Keep blotting until all signs of polish remover and any remnants of nail polish are completely gone. It will be helpful if you have an empty spray bottle in your home for the next step. You will need to go over the spot once again by spraying warm water on it. This will help to rinse the dish detergent from the carpet.
Dry the Carpet
The final step is drying the carpet. You don’t want to simply leave your carpet damp after the cleaning process because this could lead to odors or mold. You can use simple paper towels to thoroughly dry the area. Stack a pile of paper towels over the damp area and keep it there for a few hours. You may need to replace the towels every so often if you see that they are becoming saturated with water. You can place something heavy over the paper towels to keep them weighed down for maximum effectiveness. Feel free to open some windows during the drying process if it’s warm outside and you’d like to remove some of the odors that have accumulated from the polish remover and detergent.
