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Hey, so after reading some of the threads on here about stripping, i thought I'd test it out myself. I went down to my local Superdrug and bought two different types of nail polish remover. Before trying this, it's worth keeping a few things in mind..

- These are products bought from high street chemists in the UK. Products from the US or elsewhere are likely to have different active ingredients, even if they have the same brand name.
- Test this on a model you don't care about first.

I used Cutex Acetone Free and Superdrug own brand Acetone Free (the Acetone Free bit is very important). First thing we need is some models for testing - I used some lovely old 2ed boxed set Marines, covered in a million layers of paint over the years.



I placed them in the bottom of two glasses I didn't need any more (my flatmates are currently unaware of the face that we 'don't need these' any more!) and covered with the various liquids. Look! They're coloured differently so I can tell them apart!



I then left them to soak for around 15mins, after which the paint visibly started to bubble in both pots.



I then took the Superdrug one out and brushed off the paint onto some tissue with an old toothbrush. The paint came off incredibly easily. I then washed the model in a bowl of cold water, again scrubbing the last bits with the toothbrush. After this was done, I started on the next one, which had been in the Cutex. I guess the Cutex one must have got a couple more minutes than the Superdrug one.



And here are the two cleaned marines, Cutex on the left.



So, on to the verdict. Cutex DEFINITELY cleaned much smoother and easier than the Superdrug one. However, with Cutex the plastic seemed slightly soft afterwards, which might be a problem on thin models. The plastic returned to normal a few minutes after washing.

In the interests of balance, I tried the same liquids on two fire warriors, this time removing and cleaning the Cutex one first, so the Superdrug one got a minute more or so. However, the result was still clear. This time the Cutex one still cleaned much better, and the extra time in the bath for the Superdrug one seems to have softened a bit of the detail on the model.




My verdict - Cutex wins outright, but any longer than about 20mins and you might damage the model, so I'd recommend no longer than 15mins and not using it on thin, easily broken models...

I wouldn't try this on the cheaper plastic minis. I just used HEB brand nail polish remove on a squad of 10 marines. Worked just like you said, and minis were soft afterwards for a short time. I would imagine on the cheaper plastic minis that softness would be even more pronounced. I'm not willing to try though as I need all the cheap minis I have currently. I am going to try Superclean next on my metal Deathwing. The nail polish remover, although worked well, was still alot of work with a toothbrush trying to get the primer off and also to get into all the pronounced crevices. It took me several hours: soak a guy for 10 minutes, then 10 minutes cleaning, repeat 10 times. I hear the super green is faster.

Wow, that's quite interesting. I had no problem with the Cutex and scrubbing - the paint literally pulled off, and the results on the marine you see there are after about 30sec of brushing with a toothbrush. The Superdrug own brand wasn't as easy. I've rarely had to do as little scrubbing work as this, even when using Nitromors on metal!

Interesting point - just thought I'd use up the rest of these on some metal models - the Cutex won again - the Superdrug stuff had hardly any effect.