I love painting my nails, but I hate having to remove it later. Especially glitter-based and darker polishes - they're so tough to get off! I always ended up picking at the last bit of polish and damaging my nails, so I knew I needed to try something else.

After a lot of googling, I found a few solid options and tested them out. I found the winning method on gingerbreadmanne and it was so fast and easy to do I just can't get over it. :D

Removing your polish this way takes much less effort and won't damage your nails like scrubbing at them will!

Also: this is incredibly useful if you have psoriasis like I do - my thumb nails have fairly large horizontal ridges that tend to trap polish between them, and this makes removing it much easier!

If this method doesn't work for the polish you're wearing, there's another option. Try scoochmaroo's "how to remove a gel manicure" instructable for more info.

Step 1: What You'll Need:

nail polish remover
cotton balls

Aaaaand that's it.

P.S. The nail color I'm wearing is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Go For Gold. It's awesome and you probably need it. :D

Step 2: Unroll the Cotton Ball

Find the end of the roll and pick it apart with your fingers so you have one long strip.

Did you know that cotton balls were just rolled up strips of cotton? I did not.

Learning new things every day on the internets!!

Step 3: Tear Into Small Pieces

Tear the strip into smaller pieces - you can get quite a few out of one ball! You really just want pieces large enough so that you can cover your whole nail.

Step 4: Apply and Let Sit

Pour some nail polish remover into the cap and dip a strip into it. You want the strip saturated but not dripping wet.

Push the wet strip down onto a nail firmly so it will stay in place and repeat for the rest of them.

You'll want to let this sit for a minute or two once you're done.

Step 5: Removal

Once it's been a couple minutes, remove the strips but pushing them off the ends of your nails. Apply pressure at the nail bed and push the cotton toward the tip. The polish should come off pretty easy!

If the cotton sticks, chances are you didn't use enough remover. Dab more polish remover onto the cotton and let it sit a little longer.

As you can see, this method took off almost all of the glitter polish - and I was using two coats! Hooray! It took only another minute or so to remove the rest.

My nails also looked loads better than they do normally - no peeling or places where I scrubbed too hard or picked. :D