Nail polish, water and styrofoam.

This is a bit long, short summary at the end!

A while ago I was trying to get marbled nail art by dropping nail polish into a bowl of water. the polish is supposed to sit on the surface of the water and you dip your nail into it for the marbled effect. However, if I dropped in too much at once a little ball of polish would sink to the bottom of the bowl. The bowl I used was some type of disposable foam bowl you can get in a sleeve from the store, not sure if it was specifically styrofoam. But when the drop of polish rested on the bottom of the bowl, in water, it made a hole in the bowl! water leaked everywhere and it was a mess but I was fascinated, as a chem major. I tried putting polish on the bottom of a dry bowl and nothing happened, tried several different brands with the water and it made a hole each time. Same experiment had no noticeable effect on a plastic bowl. Does anyone know why this would happen?

In short: Nail polish+water+foam bowl= hole in foam. Why would this happen?

Submitted July 03, 2019 at 07:44AM by rfreemo https://ift.tt/323mDsA