We’ve all been there. You find a polish you haven’t worn in a while and decide it’s time to wear it again only to find out the lid is basically glued on and no amount of super human arm strength is going to get it unstuck. I had this experience just the other day with OPI Lunch at the Delhi. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to do this kind of post!

There is one thing you can try before doing the full on process below the jump if the issue is simply that the cap is too slick. Try wrapping a rubber band around the lip to create some traction. Often times this will work.

If the rubber band trick doesn’t work, the method below the jump should 🙂

What you need:

A cup or glass (I find wine glasses like these work really well…) The bottle of nail polish that is stuck (obviously) Hot water

Fill the glass with HOT water. As hot as your tap will allow! Put the nail polish bottle in the glass upside down. The water level should only be high enough to cover the lid.

Wait 2 minutes, dry off the polish bottle, and see if it will open. Usually this method works for me the first time, but if the bottle is still stuck, repeat the process.

Once you do get the lid off make sure to clean the top of the polish bottle with nail polish remover. That way hopefully it won’t get suck again!

Here are a few things you SHOULD NOT do:

Hit the nail polish lid against the counter (or any hard surface for that matter). While this may help loosen the lid, you could end up breaking the bottle. And no one wants that.

Force the bottle open, whether it be with your hand or a wrench or pliers. This could end up breaking the bottle or it could end up causing the lid to separate from the brush (like I did here!).

Hopefully some of you found this post to be helpful. If you have any tips for unsticking nail polish lids leave them in a comment!