When you think of items that might be useful in an emergency situation, nail polish is probably one of the last items to come to mind. However, one important survival skill is the ability to repurpose seemingly useless products into something useful.
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With that in mind, it turns out there are a number of uses for nail polish that could be quite valuable in a survival scenario. In the video below, Sensible Prepper came up with 10 survival uses for nail polish. Here they are…
1. Waterproofing Matches
Matches are an incredibly important survival tool, but they are worthless if they get wet. A little nail polish applied to the head of a match can make the match completely waterproof.
2. Sealing Tears
If you have a small tear in your tent, tarp, or backpack that is allowing water in, nail polish can be used to make a quick and effective seal.
3. Repairing Glasses
Applying nail polish to the tiny screws in your glasses can help prevent them from coming loose over time.
4. Threading a Needle
Sealing the tag of end of your thread with nail polish can make the difficult task of threading a needle a lot less difficult.
5. Painting a Gun’s Sights
Gunsights that are painted a bright color using nail polish are much more visible than blacked-out sights.
6. Color-Coding Magazines
Gun magazines can often be difficult to tell apart at a glance, but color-coding them using a stripe of nail polish makes them much easier to quickly identify.
7. Starting a Fire
Nail polish is quite flammable, making it ideal as an aid for starting a fire.
8. Rust-Proofing Metal Items
Applying a coat of nail polish to small metal items such as hooks, screws, and more can help protect them from rust.
9. Sealing a Box
In the absence of tape or glue, nail polish can be used to effectively seal a box.
10. Color-Coding Keys
Like gun magazines, keys can often be difficult to tell apart, and color-coding your keys with nail polish can help.
To learn more about these survival uses for nail polish, be sure to check out the video below for more info:
Waterproofing percussion caps and sealing bow string servings. Its a running joke that in my house dad uses more fingernail polish that three daughters and wife!
I have also used it to keep clean and seal the nose pad’s on eyeglasses. As with anything the stuff is already there. Just find different ways to use it, the MacGyver approach. Keep on keeping on.
You can use the bright colors on old or homemade fishing lures. In place of markers for permanent writing…
A person can seal an envelope with a drop or two beeswax in a couple of spots along th edge of the flap, and then coat the wax with nail polish. Be quite liberal with the nail polish, coating a bit of the flap and envelope with it.
Just as those that know how to lift regular sealing wax, beeswax can also be lifted, but the nail polish on the envelope soaks in so cannot be lifted. With a thick coating, as long as there is no rough handling, the bridged over nail polish will stay intact. So, if the flap is opened, even with the wax being lifted, there is not much way the nail polish can be repaired. Not that it cannot be, but a person has to be prepared with what is needed. And not too many people are going to even think about needing to repair nail polish after getting into an envelope.
Even if the handling of the envelope breaks the seal, it will be different than if it has been openned intentionally.
Just my opinion.