Should You Put Nail Polish In The Fridge To Help It Last Longer? We Asked An Expert

In case you need a refresher: Nail polish, just like any other beauty product, doesn't last forever. Now, your bottles of lacquer tend to have a longer shelf life than, say, a vitamin C serum sitting out in the sunlight, but at some point (namely, two years)? It's best to bid adieu.  

But before you reach that "must-toss" threshold, there's loads you can do to help your varnish keep its thin and spreadable consistency—like these hacks for when your nail polish has gone goopy. While scouring the Internet for said tricks, you might have come across a rather contested concept: Stash your nail polish in the fridge. 

If you've just raised a brow, you're not alone. We asked an expert: Should you chill your polishes to help them last longer? 

In one corner, you have folks who swear by the storage hack—they say the cool temperature not only helps keep the formula from thickening but also helps maintain the vibrant color for longer. As for chief educator of Paintbox Evelyn Lim? "Growing up, I've always seen my mother place her polishes in the fridge to keep them fresh longer," she tells mbg. "[But] in my experience, they can become thick and goopy over time." 

It seems Lim falls into the other camp—the one that believes keeping your polishes next to your produce (well, unless you have a nifty beauty fridge) effectively does the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish in the first place: It makes the polish sticky, thick, and quite difficult to sweep on. 

Generally, Lim suggests storing your polishes in a cool, dry area ("like a closet or drawer," she says). So if you live in a pretty hot or humid environment and your polishes run the risk of melting into a sticky mess, they might actually fare well with a bit of fridge time. But you don't want to keep the bottles chilled forever, lest you tip to the other side of the temperature scale and actually harden the lacquer. 

The verdict? To help your nail polish last longer, you want to keep your bottles away from extreme temperatures—both cold and hot. 

Quick review: While storing your polishes in the fridge for a beat isn't exactly make-or-break, we wouldn't recommend it for the long term. To keep the texture thin and velvety, you want to shield it from humidity and extreme cold, the latter of which can actually make the varnish thicker—exactly what you're trying to avoid.