If you are anything like me, you have never finished a bottle of nail polish. The bottle turns to gloopy sludge long before you work your way to the end. Still, the question lingers: if I buckled down and committed to a color, how many manicures can I actually get out of a bottle of nail polish?
I decided to investigate.
It's worth starting out by acknowledging the many flaws in my test design. First of all, base coats, top coats, and nail art had to be excluded. Secondly, y'all may not glop your nail polish onto your fingers as inartfully as I do. This would mean that you would use less polish (and also that you would be less likely to to accidentally the smudge the hell out of your manicure, but that's a different story!). Additionally, Julep was the only brand I measured, and they definitely have a thicker formula than, say, a quick-dry nail polish, if that is what you are using, so my findings may not generalize for that reason, as well. (On that same note: Julep's small bottles may have affected the outcome, as larger bottles could be less wasteful.) Still, I carried on!
The first step was to measure how many grams of polish a manicure uses up. To do this, I dumped out a portion of my nail polish bottle into a makeshift tinfoil cup, and measured the mass. Then, I painted my nails, taking care to minimize any potential evaporation, and measured again. Obviously, this is much more wasteful than painting out of the bottle, so I ended up using a few Julep polishes for the deed, since I own so damn many of them.
Here's what I got:
Julep Payton (2 Coats)- 0.548g
Julep Joan (2 Coats)- 0.478g
Julep Mai (2 Coats)- 0.485g
Julep Annie (2 Coats)- 0.420g
Average grams per manicure: 0.483g
The next step was to determine how many grams are in a bottle of nail polish. I sacrificed Julep's AnneMarie to the cause. (Again, I'm pretty much swimming in Julep nail polishes at this point.) I poured out the polish the measured what came out. I considered the bottle to be empty when I held it upside down for thirty seconds and no drips came out.
The contents of the bottle weighed in at 6.172g (This is the equivalent of 0.218oz.) Intuitively, I would expect that the mass of the polish would weigh more than 0.27oz, since nail polish is heavy and the bottle is 0.27 fluid ounces. However, it seems that a lot of that polish simply won't come out of the damn bottle.
6.172/0.483=12.78. Thus, a bottle of Julep nail polish, which contains 0.27 fluid ounces of product, holds about twelve manicures.
However, as we all know, most nail polish bottles are not 0.27 fluid ounces. Indeed, the standard size is 0.5 fluid ounces. (6.172/27)50=11.430. Thus, a standard nail polish bottle probably holds a little closer to 11.430g of product. 11.430/0.483=23.66. Assuming that everything generalizes acceptably, a standard 0.5 fluid ounce bottle of nail polish, then, probably holds something along the lines of twenty three manicures.
Add in your glitter and your nail art and your top coats and all that jazz, though, and I'm out of my league.
I decided to investigate.
It's worth starting out by acknowledging the many flaws in my test design. First of all, base coats, top coats, and nail art had to be excluded. Secondly, y'all may not glop your nail polish onto your fingers as inartfully as I do. This would mean that you would use less polish (and also that you would be less likely to to accidentally the smudge the hell out of your manicure, but that's a different story!). Additionally, Julep was the only brand I measured, and they definitely have a thicker formula than, say, a quick-dry nail polish, if that is what you are using, so my findings may not generalize for that reason, as well. (On that same note: Julep's small bottles may have affected the outcome, as larger bottles could be less wasteful.) Still, I carried on!
 |
| Did I mention I'm not a nail polish blogger? I'm reeeeeally not a nail polish blogger. |
The first step was to measure how many grams of polish a manicure uses up. To do this, I dumped out a portion of my nail polish bottle into a makeshift tinfoil cup, and measured the mass. Then, I painted my nails, taking care to minimize any potential evaporation, and measured again. Obviously, this is much more wasteful than painting out of the bottle, so I ended up using a few Julep polishes for the deed, since I own so damn many of them.
Here's what I got:
Julep Payton (2 Coats)- 0.548g
Julep Joan (2 Coats)- 0.478g
Julep Mai (2 Coats)- 0.485g
Julep Annie (2 Coats)- 0.420g
Average grams per manicure: 0.483g
The next step was to determine how many grams are in a bottle of nail polish. I sacrificed Julep's AnneMarie to the cause. (Again, I'm pretty much swimming in Julep nail polishes at this point.) I poured out the polish the measured what came out. I considered the bottle to be empty when I held it upside down for thirty seconds and no drips came out.
 |
| You know I live on the edge because I attempted this on carpet. (Mass of the tin foil cup was subtracted to get the final number.) |
The contents of the bottle weighed in at 6.172g (This is the equivalent of 0.218oz.) Intuitively, I would expect that the mass of the polish would weigh more than 0.27oz, since nail polish is heavy and the bottle is 0.27 fluid ounces. However, it seems that a lot of that polish simply won't come out of the damn bottle.
6.172/0.483=12.78. Thus, a bottle of Julep nail polish, which contains 0.27 fluid ounces of product, holds about twelve manicures.
However, as we all know, most nail polish bottles are not 0.27 fluid ounces. Indeed, the standard size is 0.5 fluid ounces. (6.172/27)50=11.430. Thus, a standard nail polish bottle probably holds a little closer to 11.430g of product. 11.430/0.483=23.66. Assuming that everything generalizes acceptably, a standard 0.5 fluid ounce bottle of nail polish, then, probably holds something along the lines of twenty three manicures.
Add in your glitter and your nail art and your top coats and all that jazz, though, and I'm out of my league.
