How to remove nail stains.

Want to remove nail stains? Maybe these solutions can help. Keep in mind though that yellowing of your nails is most likely due to residues from darker nail polishes (unless you smoke). To avoid this yellowing effect, always use a base coat or clear nail polish/enamel underneath your colored polish.

Removing nail stains isn’t as hard as you may think though. You probably have some of these products already in your cupboard. We’ll begin with the natural solutions you can try, and then if these don’t work we’ll get a bit more powerful. You should probably use an old toothbrush with soft bristles to apply these solutions.

For all these methods, the working time for having the solution sit on your nails is about 10 minutes. Depending on the severity of the stains one session might not cut it. If they don’t get all the stains off on one go, only repeat as often as twice a day until all the stains are removed.

• Rub a potato over your nails, then scrub. This should remove slight stains even without sitting for 10 minutes.

• Squeeze the juice from a lemon onto your nails and let it sit. Wait for the lemon juice to act on the stains. You can also massage or rub the lemon wedges directly in to your nails for a bit. Rinse thoroughly afterwards, because lemon juice is rather acidic and will dry out your skin.

• Place vinegar on your nails, let it sit then use your brush and scrub. Rinse thoroughly with water.  

• Mix together some salt and a few drops of olive oil together. Apply this to your nails for then scrub and rinse away thoroughly.

If the stains still persist try one these less natural solutions:

• Get any form of whitening toothpaste or denture cleaning product. Rub over your nails, let it sit then scrub. Rinse thoroughly.

• Mix equal parts of hydrogen peroxide and water and soak your nails. Use the brush to scrub then wash off.

• Dilute 1 part bleach with 10 parts water and soak your nails in the solution. Scrub afterwards and wash the bleach and water solution off thoroughly.

If you are not performing any of these steps as part of a full pedicure, it would be a good idea to moisturize right after washing the mixtures off and drying.

If the nail stains or yellowing still haven’t gone (and you don’t smoke), the next step is to buff the top layer of your nails with a light grit emery board or nail buffer. This will rub away the layer that has the stain and reveal the unstained nail material beneath. Make sure to only buff away the thin layer that has the stain and no deeper. Don’t do this often though! You can obviously, significantly weaken your nails.

Back to the Pedicure Guide from the Remove Nail Stains page