I get asked quite often if washable cotton pads can also remove nail polish. Nail polish remover can contain acetone, which dissolves nail polish remover and is moderately aggressive.

Of course, we have tested this to see what the effect is when you use our cotton pads to remove nail polish with it. We tested different colors on both our white and black discs. All contained acetone.

I want to add from an observant reader, that it is better not to remove your nail polish with washable cotton pads if they contain aggressive agents. This may in fact harm the environment. If you have eco-friendly nail polish, of course, you can and it will also leave less color on your cotton pad!

The clean discs. These are our soft pads. For red nail polish, we tested the 2-ply discs, for the purple nail polish we tested the 3-ply.

The reusable cotton pads while removing nail polish.

The discs before I washed them. They dried for 24 hours before I washed them. In the picture, they are not yet dry.

After removing nail polish, the discs become a little stiff if you don't rinse them immediately. In our test, we didn't rinse them out to see the effect after washing. The result? They become soft again after washing.

🤔 But do they also leave stains?
On the white discs, this is of course more visible, they leave faint stains. If you don't mind this, then you can use white discs to remove your nail polish just fine. After washing them, they are clean and reusable. A photo showing the result of different colors on our white cotton pads. The pad was washed at 60 degrees along with our bedding. Of course, we're not just going to wash our discs separately 😬.

Then the big question, how visible does the nail polish remain after a wash on the black discs? Not entirely surprisingly, a lot less visible! Very faintly you can still see light spots but a lot less than on the white discs. Again, they are reusable regardless of stains.

Bamboozy after washing
On the white piece more visible, but almost not visible on the black. This is a worst-case scenario though because here we left the nail polish on for 24 hours.

Bamboozy cotton pads wash
An interesting result. On the white discs, purple is less visible than red, but on the black discs, purple remains more visible than red.

😃 Summary
Yes, you can remove nail polish with all our types of discs. The black version leave less visible stains than the white discs, should you find this important. Do you rinse them directly with water? Then the stains are even less visible. They remain reusable after a wash and the 2-ply version is (slightly) more suitable for this job because you can get around your nails easier.

Do you have your own different experiences with our discs and nail polish removal? We would love to hear from you. Let us know via the contact form, Instagram, or chat.