Restoring A Hidden Treasure

... literally!! I posted this on MUA, but I'm making it a post here, too.

I haven't posted in 4 days because I had been at work and ended up working late every day. And I had the most traumatic nail break I think I've ever had in my entire life. More on that in another post, but my finger is currently just bandaged because I have not a clue what to do about it. Anyway...

I was at a Walmart on Thursday that I just never tend to go to. It's definitely near me, in the city that I work and everything, but I just never go to that one. They had an awesome Wet n Wild display where I grabbed Gray's Anatomy. I hadn't found that ANYWHERE in my area. They also had bins of "clearance" cosmetics (which the Walmart I usually go to NEVER has). They were red tagged, but I know that at Walmart, red tag doesn't necessarily mean clearance (I hate how sneaky that is). But these red tags were all 50% and some were legit cheaper than they usually would be before the 50% off.

So anyway, I saw some SH CSM but I already had them. And then... I saw it... Hidden Treasure!! I had no idea this was sold at Walmart. I was under the impression that it was only drugstores, particularly Wags. So I'm super excited. One problem though. It looks like this:









So in the post I made on MUA, I was asking if people thought I should use just thinner alone or if I should add some clear polish. I had been aware of this post by Scrangie for quite some time, and I myself have witnessed the wonders of thinner. However, I wasn't sure if I should be adding something else because HT is more of a top coat while the polish(es) Scrangie restored were actual pigmented polishes. My bottle is just filled with clumps of flakies, so I'm afraid if I add pure thinner, the consistency I'd end up with would be horribly off.

Ultimately, I decided to start with thinner alone and not fill the bottle completely. My thought being if the consistency is that off, I could add clear polish or I could just leave the cap off, let the thinner evaporate, and start over.

So here's HT after the first round of thinner 10 minutes into the thinning process:

Here it is after being shaken


I turned it upside down so you could see how much is still clumped at the bottom.


Some of the flakies have started to break away from the giant clump.


The brush is already starting to look normal again!!


After an hour and a half letting it soak in and intermittently shaking it, I decided to add more thinner because there was still a good deal that was still clumped at the bottom.

You could even see the ball stuck in the clump.


But overall, almost all of the flakies had started to unclump!!


Two hours in I decided to top it off with thinner because pure thinner was clearly the best option. Here's the end result several days later (there was no real change from the day after I added thinner after letting it sit overnight, and when these photos were taken).

This is before you shake the polish. I don't know if unthinned HT does this, but you can see how the flakies have fallen down and there's a cloudy area at the top.


And this is after giving it a couple of shakes just as you would a normal polish. All the flakies are evenly dispersed.


And the brush is now completely normal!!


So thinner is amazing. Best thing ever. If you're curious, I used Beauty Secrets from Sally Beauty Supply, which can be found online here (my bottle looks different than the one in the photo). It's also sold in stores, which is where I picked it up.

I did mix it around with a toothpick, but not too much because I was afraid I might destroy the flakies. Overall, looks like it came out gorgeous!! I haven't tried it on my nails yet (obviously, considering I've been at work), but I did swatch it on a nail wheel:

Left is Sinful Black on Black
Right is OPI Mermaid's Tears