Have you ever tried using white glue for cleanup when painting your nails? A few months ago I poured some Elmer’s glue into an old nail polish bottle and now I use this stuff all the time! Isn’t the sticker I put on there cute? Are you blue? No, I’m GLUE! That’s what I say to myself every time I reach for this little bottle of glue that I made!
WHAT I USE GLUE FOR: Elmer’s is also called white craft glue or PVC glue and it can be applied around your nail before you start a messy nail art technique. I paint it on all around my nail and then when I’m done with my nail art I simply peel the glue off that surrounds my nail. Any stray polish that would’ve stained my fingers or cuticles just lifts right off with the dried glue… all in one big peel-y piece. It’s kinda fun to peel off and then you don’t need to use nail polish remover to cleanup around your manicure! It was super helpful for my SUGAR SPUN MANI since all the messy strands of polish peeled right off of my fingers and left my mani looking clean and crisp.
You can also use this glue as a peel-off base coat for hard-to-remove glitter polish! I’ve only tried it once as a peel-off base coat…but I will definitely use it next time I wear glitter. I love how the glue turns clear when it’s dry. Then you know when you’re ready to start painting over top of it. I wish regular base coat did that!
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BOTTLE: It’s easy to make your own bottle of this stuff! I took an empty nail polish bottle… shown here is my old bottle of seche vite topcoat. To clean the empty out you can pour some nail polish remover/acetone into the bottle (maybe a quarter of the way full) and shake rigorously. Then pour the remover out and check to see how clean the bottle is. Repeat this step as necessary- you may need to pour remover in one or two more times to get it clean. Then rinse the bottle with soapy water and leave it overnight to dry. The next day you can squeeze some white glue into the bottle- then you are ready to play!
For extra fun you can cover the bottle with cute stickers like I did. I used Winnie the Pooh stickers on mine! Are you blue? No, I’m glue! It makes me smile every time I reach for this cute bottle!
Have you ever tried glue or peel-off base coat?
Craftynail 
I don’t do nail art but I need just for my everyday nail polish since I am all over the place. Definitely will be trying this when I change polish again!
Cool! I think it’ll come in handy for you 🙂
That’s cool! I usually use that method when I do gradient nail art with sponge because it’s always messy when you play with sponge. Really2 a helpful way to clean up the mess. But I never thought to put it in the nail polish bottle like that, I always squeeze it right onto my finger. What a great trick to make it easier to apply 😀 Great!
Yeah- it’s easy to brush it on with a nail bottle brush!
Thanks for reading!
Such a great tip! Love the bottle sticker 😀
Thank you! It may be my cutest bottle in my stash 🙂
Never thought to use glue this way, what a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Oh good- so glad you found it helpful! 🙂
Brilliant! Do you dilute the glue at all? Also, did you re-design your header? Looks cute, regardless!
Nope, I didn’t dilute it at all. Yeah- i re-did my header using a free template I found online. Wish I remembered the website- because she had a lot of cute headers to choose from!
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I always use elmers for my glitter manis and I’ve tried it a few times for cleanup too!!! 😉
For glitter manis- do you recommend a base coat before applying the glue?
I do the glue then a base coat over it. It’s harder for me to pull it back up with if I put my Nail Magic on first. I’ve never tried it with any other base. Let me know if you find one that works under it!
are you blue? no im glue! haha thats so cute! made me smile! 🙂
awww thanks! It is kinda cute 😉
I knew immediately whose post this was by those awesome rainbow nails! I’m so glad you posted them again I love, love. love them! I use Elmer’s daily straight from the bottle and it’s developing a crust as a result of me not tightening the cap quick enough. So I’ll be adopting your empty Seche bottle trick. Thanks for the tip!
That’s so nice, thnx! I don’t mind posting these twice cuz I love them too hehe.
I get some dried glue crust on the top of my bottle… but it just peels right off without a problem 🙂
That sticker is so cute! I’ve used glue as a base coat before, but I haven’t heard of using it to protect the fingers. I’ll definitely have to give that a try next time I do something messy. Have you ever had the glue (as a base coat) not want to peel off in one piece before? It usually works fine for me, but every once in a while it doesn’t want to peel and I have to pick/scrape off little bits at a time.
Yes! The one time I tried it under glitter I had to pick it off in little bits! But I heard that the polish I used was hard to remove
Ooh that makes sense I guess. If I know that I’ll be having trouble with a particular polish, I’ll use two layers of glue underneath, but if I forget/don’t know to do that, then at least it’s super easy to remove with acetone then.
That’s a good idea to use two coats!
Hehe I love the sticker! (: And I love whoever who came up with peel-off base coats/using glue for that… glitter can be combated much easier now!
Yup…peel-off is genius!
Wow does any white glue do the job? This would save my cutticle of drying out of the remover. I really need to give this a try.
I used cheapo white glue (the kind kids use) from the dollar store!
If you are using it for cleanup I just recommend not getting it on your nail. Last time I put it all over my cuticles and got some on my nail… Then when I painted my nails I guess I put polish over top of the glue on my nailbed. And when I peeled it off it tried to pull some of the polish off from the corners of my nail (you can see that a lil bit in my rainbow nail pics). But if you keep it solely on your cuticles and skin- it works great!!!
this is so smart…. I wish I hadn’t just ordered Liquid Pallisade. Sounds like this will do the trick for way less!
I guess you can never have too much nail stuff! lol
true story. I guess I could try a comparison – which is better, Elmer’s Glue or a $22 bottle of Liquid Pallisade?
That stuff costs 22 bucks? I’m sure it will work better then!
I just tried it out, and I have to say, it was super good. Maybe not worth $22 though! Good thing for Amazon points 😉
Sounds like a good purchase then 🙂
Ok, stupid question time!! I remember having this issue when I was a teenager and would empty out a bottle and try to clean it with nail polish remover/acetone…the brush always gets all weird! Did this happen to you? Once it is in the glue, does it magically become normal again? Am I the only one that this happens to?? 🙂 Thank you for posting this, I’m going to try it out, but I need to get the brush situation fixed!
Hmm… my seche vite brush didn’t get weird at all! I’ve never tried another kind… so I can’t compare. Now I’m curious!
Hmm..I never thought that it was the bristles. I was using a Sally Hansen basecoat, the bristles are clear, not sure what they are made out of, but it’s almost like the nail polish remover is melting the bristles! Lol and while I do have a seche bottle, it’s nowhere near empty. I guess I could just buy an empty bottle! 🙂
Interesting! Maybe those clear SH bristles don’t hold up well?
I guess not. Darn, I really liked that brush shape too! Ok I’m going to try it with a wet n wild bottle. Black bristles…cross your fingers!!
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This works so well! Thank you for the tip! I tagged you in one of my posts 😉 http://beautyfitmom.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/tag-would-you-rather/
I saw something about PVC glue and googled it. Thankfully it pulled up your post. I stopped wearing glitter polish due the difficulty of getting it off now I can wear it again 🙂 I have always had kinda oily skin its not noticeable but my nail polish never sticks to my skin for more than about an hour.
Glad this helped! 😀
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I have never tried using glue, but now I think I have to! (Heehee. That rhymned.) 😜 So you don’t add anything to the glue? I thought I saw somewhere about mixing water into it.
yeah some people add water, but I didn’t. mine dries kinda slow though… but at least you can tell when it’s dry. i wonder if the water thins it and makes it dry faster?
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