I get more questions about how to waterproof paper quilled jewelry than any other types of questions.  Which makes sense seeing as I blog most often about paper quilled jewelry and sealants, and I enjoy answering the questions that I can.

Today I want to answer a question that I get about once a week:  “Can I use clear nail polish/varnish on my paper quilled jewelry?”

The short answer is….. YES    There are people who use clear nail polish.  It will give a hard, glossy, quite waterproof seal.  Probably even more waterproof than many of the paper specific sealants that are out there and that I use.

BUT…  I don’t use it on my own jewelry and I don’t ever plan on doing so.  Here are my reasons:

  1. Nail polish has fumes.  It is stinky.  I don’t like working with products like these in my smallish craft room and with children around.  I prefer non toxic water based sealants.
  2. It’s not formulated to be long lasting.  You only wear nail varnish for a few days/weeks.  There is the chance that over months/years it could get a yellow tint to it.  This is true of some resins as well which I found out the hard way (I’ll save that for another post!).  Besides getting yellow it could start getting too brittle over time.
  3. It is pricey. You can see on Amazon that the price ranges from about USD $3-$6 for .5 fl. oz.  For that price you can get 2oz of Diamond Glaze, Crystal Coat Glaze, Mod Podge Dimensional Magic and many other water based non toxic sealants that still give the shiny finish.
  4. Messy.  Maybe I still haven’t learned the best technique, but I always get some sealant on my fingers when I am sealing my jewelry.  I don’t want to have to wear gloves while doing my work and you can’t just rinse off nail polish the way you can rinse off the water based sealants.

That’s enough reasons for me not to delve into using transparent nail varnish for my own jewelry.  There are too many other options out there that I am happy with and too many reasons why I myself don’t like to use varnish.  I don’t even use it on my own nails, preferring my daughter’s non toxic piggy paint for that.  No stinky fumes!

You can click HERE to check out all of the other posts I have about sealants.  I have a lot more planned for the coming weeks/months as well.

Sometimes I talk about sealants in the individual posts about the jewelry I have made.  You can view all of the jewelry posts HERE.

 

Stick around and check out some of the other fun stuff on the blog!

Click here to view more free paper quilling tutorials!

Click here to view paper quilling tips and tricks!

Click here to view a list of places to buy quilling supplies around the world!

Click here to view some of my own quilling projects, with tips so you can make your own if you’d like!

 

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