Nail Polish Accident

G

GTFreddy

New member
Hello Everyone,



Rather unfortunate that my first post must come under this stressful situation for me. My mom was shaking her nail polish bottle outside near my car when the lid came undone and landed across most of the right front fender, front bumper, hood, wheel, and tire.



I went to a detailer and he said that he couldn't work on it, granted he is more of a wash and dry operation than anything else. I went to a bigger establishment and they said they could wetsand the polish off, but that it might strip the clear coat off. They said they would call a "specialist" in and have him use paint thinner to remove the polish and part of the paint and then re-clear the front of the car.



I would like to know what my options are at this point. The car is a black Mustang. Nail polish red.



I was thinking of wetsanding myself with 1000 grit sand paper, then move up to 2000 grit. Followed by the use of some sort of polish to bring the shine back. I'm not completely new to auto detailing but I'm not a pro either.



Any recommendations would help.



Thanks,



Freddy
 
Sorry, it seems like it was the lid that landed across the car, but it was acutally the red nail polish that landed all over the front of the car.
 
try everything you can before wetsanding imo. 4* clay has removed many foreign paint issues for some of my customers, never dealt with nail pollish though.
 
I tried the california stuff. The yellow claybar, and didn't remove much. Then again I can't say I gave a HARD, HONEST effort. Perhaps it would take more than an hour to do?
 
ScubaStevo said:
I'd try some varsol and see how it turns out.
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It's always worth a try, but most Varsol available is nothing more than mineral spirits. Varsol is an Exxon name for their solvents. The unfortunate thing about most nail polsihes is that their carrier is often times acetone which is a very aggressive solvent. The best approach is to keep claying and hope it didn't etch into the paint.
 
My wife has this odd habit of using a particular red nail polish on paint chips on her car. Try as I may she won't use the touch up pen I got her. Anyway, when I last used the touch up pen I used nail polish remover to remove all her "repairs" and it worked fine. I couldn't see any damage to the clearcoat or any other ill effects. I used very little on a cotton ball and rinsed right away with water. I'd say try nail polish remover on an inconspicuous spot to be sure but I think you'll be fine.
 
I'd try the 3m adhesive cleaner first, than the nail polish route. You should be fine. I've used this on coated/finished leather with no problems. Use as little as you can and blot instead of rubbing if you can.
 
Thank you for your timely responses. DFTowel, your idea worked wonderfully. I tested on a hidden area and it didn't remove any clear or paint. Tried it on the nail polish and removed it. I had thought of this at first, but I thought it would have also removed the clear.



I'll go over the areas that I missed tommorow.



Now while I was at the detailer, it tested an area on the fender with 1000 grit paper. How would I remove the marring left by him?



Thanks again.
 
Nail polish remover. It's Acetone so use it judiciously. I've done this before and made sure I was very careful. The paint suffered no ill effects.
 
GTFreddy said:
Now while I was at the detailer, it tested an area on the fender with 1000 grit paper. How would I remove the marring left by him?



Thanks again.
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Ouch. Take it back to him and make him fix it if you can. If not, your only real options are rotary/wool pad/really serious compound, or wetsanding it down. Go very gently, and use 2000 grit until the 1000 grit marks are gone, then either finish with a rotary or continue on with 3000 and finish via PC. You might want to have someone else do this, unless you have previous wetsanding experience.
 
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