I really enjoy sitting and painting my nails. It’s a process, its quiet, it’s concentrated and I really enjoy it . . .when it goes smoothly. Lately I have been having nothing but trouble though. No matter what type of cotton pad I use I get little (nearly invisible so they sneak past the eye) bits of lint on my nails. Then I go to paint them only to realize that it has either caused a lump or a bubble, or even has a straggly little piece hanging out of the polish off the end of my nail. If you try to pull it the polish get’s all wrinkled like melted cheese. It makes me crazy. It’s ruining my zen process and something needs to be done. I will not sit idly by while I have lint in my melted cheese nails.

The other night after a particularly frustrating mani session I got to googlin’. There has to be some sort of solution.

When I googled lint on nails, I got a lot of results for lint free nail wipes, and there were a few types available on amazon. So I ordered two different varieties to try. One variety isn’t due to arrive until February (annoying, but they were $1.93 so I can’t whine about it) and I didn’t want to wait to talk about this that long because there must be someone else out there suffering with me, so let’s chat about the ones I did get.

UPDATE: THE NEW WIPES ARRIVED AND THEY ARE BETTER! READ ABOUT THEM HERE

These lint free nail wipes from IBD are intended for use with acrylic nails, but the box says you can also use them for remover. They’re made of soft foam and they come in rectangles that break apart into these little honeycomb shapes. This box of 80 wipes cost around six dollars on amazon, and I needed three to take all of my nail polish off, which breaks down to around 25 cents per manicure. I can live with that if they work well.

Here’s the deal: They work. They don’t leave any lint on your nails and they take the polish off, BUT they can be messy. The foam texture is very absorbent so a lot of remover gets soaked in, and then when you press it onto the nail to remove the polish some drips out. So it’s best to use less remover if possible and maybe use this with some paper towels under your hands for safety. Nobody wants to ruin the furniture, that’s worse than lint.

So these will do for now. I like them better than lint in my nail polish, but I will post an update if I find a better solution to this. Oh . . .and if you have a better solution leave me a comment and tell me! Don’t leave your girl in the dark. 😉