Here’s How to Remove Your Acrylic Nails at Home (Without Ruining Your Natural Ones)
I go through an acrylic nail phase once every few years. Usually, it’s immediately following a nail-biting phase—acrylics are my go-to hack for saving me from myself, giving my natural nails time to grow back while hiding my shame under an immaculate manicure.
The tedious part I always wished I could skip? The removal appointment. Of course, the one time I did skip it and DIYed my acrylic nail removal, I regretted it—this was a long time ago, as in early-days-of-Googling long time ago, so my technique was some combination of the wrong tools and brute force. It took my natural nails months to recover.
My lesson: don’t try this at home. Nail artists agree that leaving it up to the pros is the safest way to go. But that’s not why you’re here, reading this with zero intention of going to a nail salon to remove your outgrown acrylics. So we asked a nail artist and a dermatologist specializing in nail health: If we’re going to remove our acrylics at home (just this once and never again, we swear)—what is the best way to do it?
Here’s what nail artist Casey Herman and dermatologist Dana Stern, MD, recommend.
Supplies for removing acrylic nails at home
If you’re going to attempt to do this at home, you’re going to need the right supplies. Here’s what Herman recommends you have on hand:
How to remove acrylics at home, step by step
You’ve got the supplies. What next?
“I highly recommend going to a salon for all acrylic removal, but in emergency situations, I prefer to file off most of the acrylic and then soak off the remaining thin layer of acrylic off the nails with acetone,” Herman says. Here’s how to do it:
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