Why you should inventory your nail polish regularly

A quick story from a recent personal experience: At the salon where I currently work they store nail polish on a wall shelf.  I typically bring my own supplies, but one client asked for a color off the shelf. I had no idea how long this polish had been there, but decided it would probably be fine to use. I proceeded to perform the manicure and sent her on her way. She was my list client of the day, so I headed home a couple hours before the salon actually closed.

Less than an hour after I got home the salon called to tell me that the client had called complaining that her manicure had become gritty. She wanted to know if I could re-do her nails right away, before the salon closed. So I headed back to the salon to see what the problem was. Long story short – the polish I had used was very old, and the manicure had developed tiny bubbles over the hour or so after it was done.  It looked like I had used a texture polish!

So I applied a different color of polish and apologized profusely to the client. I also tossed the bottle of polish in the trash while the client was there, so she could see that we would not be risking this happening again. After I was done, I thought “How can I prevent this from happening again?”. Not only had a I lost time but also money, and caused frustration for myself and the client.

The answer I came up with is simple: inventory the nail polish on a regular basis.  Did you know that the shelf life of Gelish is 18 months?

On cosmetics there is a symbol indicating the product’s shelf

life, which usually looks like this:

 

The number will change depending on the number of months of good shelf life. I’m not saying that your gel polish won’t last longer than 18 months, but the expiration date is the recommended length of time in which you should use the product. After that amount of time it’s important to check them before you sit down to use them on a client!

If you find this information useful, here are some ideas for inventorying your nail polish:

• Record the polish brand, color name and/or item number, and the date you purchased it, into a spreadsheet or notebook. Some people like to do this on paper so they can include a swatch.
• At predetermined intervals, say every 6 months or 12 months, go through your collection and personally test all the bottles that are approaching expiration.
• If you don’t know when you bought a polish or other cosmetics, you can try checking the database at checkcosmetic.net or similar sites to find out what the shelf life is of that batch.

If you have any experience with polish expiring or with inventorying your stash, let me know in the comments below!