Why do my gel nails get stained?

To clean your gel nails, start by dipping a Q-tip in nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol. Once you’ve soaked the Q-tip, lightly dab at the stain or mark so you don’t remove the gel color with it. If your nails are still dirty, lay a towel down on a table and place your hand on top. Then, spray hairspray over your nail until it looks wet and use a Q-tip to rub the stain off. Alternatively, use a buffer of at least 220 grit to lightly rub the top layer off. After you've buffed off the dirt, apply a thin layer of top coat to protect your manicure. For more tips from our Beauty co-author, including how to remove the gel from your nails, read on!

Table of Contents Show

How do you get stains out of gel nails?
Why do my gel nails keep staining?
What causes gel nails to turn brown?
How do you get yellow stains out of gel nails?

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I’m surprised this is not a more talked about topic because a Gel Polish manicure is hella expensive and no one wants their cute summer colors stained with curry!

I’ve actually considered eating my roti and curry with a fork and knife because of this issue. I don’t want to choose between having cute stain free nails and eating curry. It’s not fair!

I have not found anything that works really well other than using nail polish remover to wipe nails down with right after I am done eating. I did some research and found some tips. Let me know if any of these work for you.

1. Soak your fingers in lemon juice for about ten minutes. The lemon juice works as a natural astringent and bleach that lifts the stain off of your nails. Buffing your nails will also help remove the stain.

2. You can also rub potato on your nails to remove slight stains

3. Rub your fingers and nails with vinegar and cleanse them with water

4. Take teaspoonful of table salt and few drops of olive oil and mix well. Apply it on your nails for 10-15 min and rinse. This natural remedy isn’t just great to get rid of yellow stains, it also moisturizes your cuticles

Two years ago, when I posed an urgent question to the universe (OK, social media and in a Journal News/lohud column) asking why my gel nail polish manicure was changing color on one hand, I got numerous guesses.

But none of them were conclusive. I even called up Revlon, the parent company that owns CND (Creative Nail Design), the brand of nail polish that was used on my nails at the salon, but came away with no satisfactory answers.

A licensed cosmetologist at Revlon ventured it could have been a chemical reaction from cosmetics or a cleaning agent on my dominant hand. She also said she'd refer it to R&D and ask the chemists in the department if they could shed some light. The chemists didn't call me back.

How had the nails on my right hand mysteriously changed color from lavender to a pistachio green?

Back then, a colleague wondered if it had anything to do with the "Mood Ring" nail polish. Interestingly, he wasn’t alone. Many commenters thought I might have accidentally picked a mood-changing nail polish that alters color with a shift in temperature.

But why would my right hand turn green with envy while my left hand remained a cool lavender, I wondered.

Once applied, the nail paint is cured under UV light to set, and typically last two weeks without chipping.

Manicure changes color from lavender to green

As one of the most popular stories on lohud, based on pageviews and follow-up questions via Twitter, email and Facebook from people all over the world, I realized that this was a mystery worth solving.

Today, I’m happy to report I have finally cracked the case.

One reason it took me two years to blow the lid off this issue is because I am an infrequent gel nail polish user.

However, it happened again. This time a light pink shade took on a beige hue. Again: right hand.

Hmm, what had I done the previous night?

I had cooked rasam: A delicious, soupy dish made with tomatoes and tamarind extract.

As a self-respecting South Indian, I eschew the use of ready made tamarind paste. Instead, I extract the juice from the sour and tangy fruit by soaking it in warm water and gently squeezing and separating the pulp from the seeds — with my right hand and my manicured fingers!

As I soon realized, the high acid content in the fruit was interacting with my gel nail paint.

Given that ingredients from Indian cooking, from the highly staining turmeric (yellow counter tops, anyone?), ghee, coconut oil and tamarind have found their way into the shelves of Whole Foods and pantries everywhere, it’s practically a public service announcement.

Don’t extract tamarind juice with gel manicured fingers.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy covers women and power for the USA Today Network Northeast. She also occasionally writes about her frustration with manicures. Write to her at [email protected]

How do you get stains out of gel nails?

Soak a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover and try to remove the stain. Make sure you are rubbing gently, as you don't want to remove any of the gel nail polish. This method should also be used when the stain is still fairly fresh.

Why do my gel nails keep staining?

Gel nails can be stained or discolored by a lot of things. These include exposure to chemicals, exposure to spices or dyes, and smoking. Fungal infections and bad products can cause the faded, discolored look you're trying to avoid. Over-curing and too much exposure to UV light can also leave gel nails yellowed.

What causes gel nails to turn brown?

The most likely reason is either under or over exposure to UV light during the drying process. Sometimes they might even turn yellow due to over-curing at UV light. Other reasons are due to your nail coming into contact with strong chemicals such as cleaning agents, make up products, spices such as turmeric.