Whiten Toenails with Toothpaste

You know those online magazine slide shows with stock photography and little blurbs on the sidebar from beauty experts? I love those things. Somehow I think that a 2-sentence piece of advice from a Hollywood hairdresser or a make-up tip from the make-up artist of the stars is really going to impact my life. This one is on how to whiten your toenails.

Image from Shape

And the advice blurb is from none other than Roxanna Sarmiento, beauty and style writer, and blogger at everydaytreats.com. See? She knows what’s going on, guys. She says, “If you get yellow nails after months of wearing dark polish, try scrubbing your toenails with a nail brush and whitening toothpaste. It gets rid of the yellow color. Try it—it works pretty well, and you end up with minty fresh toes!”

How could I not try it, I ask you.

Months of wearing dark polish? Check.

This is my 4th of July pedicure. I had wanted the pedicure dude to put fireworks on my big toe, but he was brusque and there was a language barrier and before I could ask, he was already carefully, carefully sliding my 5-year-old nasty Rainbows back on my feet and shuffling me over to the toe-drying bench. So, just plain blue.

My first pass of acetone yielded scary results.

Scary, and also not particularly yellow. More frostbite blue. Another round of acetone left things slightly better-looking. I mean, at least looking less like I have massive circulatory problems.

Now, maybe I’m just blind to my own flaws. (This is a distinct possibility. I’ve always been led to believe it’s just good, healthy self-esteem, but I may in fact be a disgusting fuck without knowing it.) But my toenails don’t really look that yellow to me, even before whitening toothpaste.

Still, whiter is better, according to Hollywood. (Did I just make a snide jab at Hollywood without even meaning to? Oopsie.)

I could not find a nail brush, even in my massive collection of nail polish accouterments, but I did find a freebie-from-the-dentist toothbrush, which seemed only appropriate since we’re using toothpaste.

I’m really disappointed that my toothpaste didn’t get all sudsy like the stock photography. Boo and hiss.

But did it whiten?

Despite my poor photography skills, you can sort of see that there’s really not a lot of difference here. But, I will give it the fact that it made my toenails have less of a blue tinge, so that means whiter, right? Yes. We’re gonna go with yes.

Because then I can be all like, “See? I am not wasting my time when I read beauty magazines. I am learning valuable information about how to look less like I dropped a pile of textbooks on both feet, thankyouverymuch.”

Success.