So, when I was all by myself last week, instead of tackling my list-of-things-to-do like a good girl, I drowned my sorrows in red wine and dark purple fingernail polish (don’t worry, I wasn’t upset enough to DRINK the nail polish).

And even though I was fairly successful at keeping the wine in my glass, I was less so about keeping the fingernail polish on my toes and ended up with a pretty splatter right across the front of my nicest white dress pants.

Obviously, this wasn’t good. But I was especially distressed because these were “good butt” pants…meaning, they make my butt look good. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, “good butt” pants are almost as valuable as a steady heartbeat. And to make matters worse, the fingernail polish was DARK (Siberian Nights by OPI) so as you can imagine, I thought these pants were toast.

I went online, of course, and searched high and low for the best way to tackle Siberian Nights on cotton dress pants and found that bug spray was by far the weapon of choice. Well, I tried bug spray, and Goo Gone, and fingernail polish remover, but Siberian Nights wasn’t budging (damn stubborn Russians).

Finally, I found a suggestion for Motsenbocker’s Lift Off #3, and though I’d never heard of it before, the person who suggested it SWORE by it. So I went to Home Depot (my local Lowe’s didn’t carry it) and found the product in the paint section.

There are 5 different varieties of Mostesenboker’s Lift Off and the product was initially designed for paint, graffitti, permanent marker and ink removal but is gentle enough to be used on fabrics. And right there on the label, variety #3 lists fingernail polish as something it can remove…so I bought it. I mean, what did I have to lose?

Oh yeah, a pair of “good butt” pants.

Anyway, after soaking the spots and blotting repeatedly…Siberian Nights lightened up and eventually disappeared. I was floored. It did take several applications and a little agitation (Motsenbocker suggests using the back of a toothbrush which worked really well as it didn’t make the spot I was treating fuzzy or worn looking). One tip: put a rag or paper towel under the stain you’re treating because it literally falls off of the fabric and in my case, the polish fell onto the other side of the pants.

This is probably one of those products I’ll always have sitting underneath my sink…along with Goo Gone and Soft Scrub with Bleach, and comes close to being as useful as my Tide-to-Go pen (which I never leave home without).

And if I ever do manage to tackle my to-do list (which includes painting my bathroom), I’ve got something to take the paint out of whatever I spill it on…which will probably be anything within splattering distance.

~tcb

Want more? Click here to subscribe to “that cool broad”.