O.P.I Nail Lacquer Thinner Review

After having to chuck out my Sally Hansen top coat when it got incredibly goopy halfway through the bottle, and with the threat of having to do the same to my Essie Good to Go top coat, I decided it was time to try out polish thinners. Both top coats weren't exactly cheap and for the money you pay, you expect to at least get to use up more than half of the product. I also wanted to thin out my O.P.I Alpine Snow, which has gotten quite thick.

After doing a bit of research, I finally settled on the O.P.I thinner. The Essie one apparently doesn't work on top coats at all, and a lot of people mentioned a bunch of harmful ingredients in the Seche Vite one so I decided to skip out on that one for the time being.

The instructions are simple: add 2-3 drops, shake well.

I first tried the thinner on my Essie top coat. I added in 3 drops at first, and shook vigorously. Made no difference. I added in 3 more drops, shook again, and this time I also stirred it with the blunt end of a skewer. It did thin out a little, but nowhere near as much as I was expecting. I can't complain too much though, since it wasn't made for Essie polishes and I've heard that thinners don't always work on other brands of polish.

I then preceded to try it out on Alpine Snow. Again, I added 2-3 drops and shook hard. And again, nothing happened. I added 2 more drops, shook and stirred again, and this time it did work well: it thinned out nicely. I would have liked it to be a little bit thinner, but I didn't want to add in more thinner, just in case it ended up a bit too thin.

I'm going to try this out on a few more brands. So far, I'm not loving it. The instructions aren't great at all. If you're resorting to using a thinner, you're polish has probably gotten quite thick and as such, 2-3 drops doesn't quite cut it. And I don't think shaking a thick polish is going to do much either: you really have to stir it in to make sure it's thinning out evenly.

I got this on eBay for about €7.80.