Meagan’s recent post about nail polish storage (and how she has never actually finished a bottle of nail polish) reminded me that I still haven’t posted about one of my favorite new products: Polish thinner. The purpose of polish thinner is simple: It brings old polishes back from the dead.

Whether your favorite polish is way too thick to apply, separated into different layers (even after you shake – ahem, roll - the bottle) or totally dried up, a few drops of thinner can fix what ails ya.

I grabbed a bottle of Orly Polish Thinner at Sally because one of my favorite polishes – OPI’s Mad as a Hatter, a delirious multicolored glitter – had become impossibly goopy and unmanageable; in short, it was a nightmare to apply.

I’ve only used it a few times and I wasn’t about to toss it, so I knew polish thinner was my only hope.

Ordinarily, you only have to add a few drops of thinner to make

your polish viable again. (After getting this stuff, I went on a veritable polish thinning spree, successfully rehabbing polishes I’ve held onto since high school with just two or three drops.

Polish hoarders, you have been redeemed!) But Mad as a Hatter was a little more stubborn than that.

I’ m not sure how

many drops I added – truthfully, I lost count.

But hallelujah, my persistence paid off and I was actually able to paint my nails with the stuff again!

In short, don’t – I repeat, do NOT – throw out those old nail colors you adore.

Invest a few bucks in some polish thinner first and see if you can’t bring them back to life.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised…