Clear nail polish

[Microworld Steve]

Does anyone use clear fingernail polish as a mounting medium?

[Greg Howald]

Personally, I think you would be better off using Elmer's glue. Goes on white. Dries clear. R.I. 1.46.
My experience with nail polish says keep the slides for two years and when they have all turned white or crystallized you will throw them out. Others may have had better experiences but I'll give my opinion.
Greg

[Microworld Steve]

Hey Greg, I do have some Balsam, but I've seen on some Facebook groups where people use clear nail polish and it works, at least for them. I even think Oliver did a video about clear nail polish. I was just wondering.
Thanks for your reply.
Steve

[cmake]

Came across a nice article about it recently: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/art ... olish.html
Haven't tried it myself yet, though.

[MicroBob]

Hi Steve,
mountants have to have a couple of properties, and nail polish has few of them. So while it is probably usable for a few types of objects it is not attractive as a general use mountant. I use a couple of different mountants and have several more, each has it's application. Do you have something in mind that you want to transform into a slide?

Bob

[DonSchaeffer]

I tried it once. It doesn't always mount the specimen that well--it could leave it loose. It also destroys cell tissue. I bought some clear school glue but never used it. I stopped trying to mount permanent slides.

[Microworld Steve]

Came across a nice article about it recently: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/art ... olish.html
Haven't tried it myself yet, though.

Thank you for posting this link. I'll copy and past it to a word file then save it as a pdf.

[Microworld Steve]

Hi Steve,
mountants have to have a couple of properties, and nail polish has few of them. So while it is probably usable for a few types of objects it is not attractive as a general use mountant. I use a couple of different mountants and have several more, each has it's application. Do you have something in mind that you want to transform into a slide?

Bob

My go to mountants are usually balsam. I was thinking about using it for things like bird feathers and insect parts.

[Microworld Steve]

I tried it once. It doesn't always mount the specimen that well--it could leave it loose. It also destroys cell tissue. I bought some clear school glue but never used it. I stopped trying to mount permanent slides.

I'll remember that for most of what I mount.

[MicroBob]

My go to mountants are usually balsam. I was thinking about using it for things like bird feathers and insect parts.

Classic stinky nail polish contains a lot of fast evaporating solvent. In thick layers it will probably cause more trouble then in thin layers. Where this nail polish should work it to get surface models of stomata which then will be mounted in something that doesn't dissolve the nail polish, e.g. air.

Today stinky solvents are often repalaced by water and a lot of hope and the products don't work as well as they have to. So what you get today depends on how "modern" it is.

For thick mounts LOCA (liquid optical clear adhesive), sold to mount new xcreens on smartphones, works well. My TP 2500 hardens to silicone like hardness, attatches very well to fine structures und gives beautiful slides. It is UV hardening. I can't tell how long it lasts, depending an brand probably as long as a smartphone. I have not heard of it giving up over time.

Bob

[Microworld Steve]

Hey Bob. I never thought about using LOCA. After reading your reply I went on Amazon and found several LOCA products. Will this brand work?
https://www.amazon.com/Barcley-Adhesive ... 477&sr=8-8

[Red_Green]

Dudes, I had the same issue's with nail polish. Truthfully, it is a garbage medium for slide making.

- It stinks
- Lots of unmanageable bubbles
- leaves huge gaps around specimen where it doesn't stick to specimen
- Destroys tissue which results in immediate discoloration of the specimen.
- After some time it leaves bizarre white spots and most of the area will then turn white and be not viewable or crystalizing which also leaves it not viewable
- Therefore not permanent or long lasting. Nail polish was never meant to be permanent. The slides will have to be thrown out in a short time.

After doing lots of searching and I mean a lot of searching seeing as mounting medium is illegal to acquire here in Canada unless you have a commercial science laboratory license to obtain deadly and hazardous chemicals. I found this on ebay;

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Canada-Balsam-F ... xycmBS3Yut

100% pure lab /optician grade Canada Balsam gum (resin) made right here in Canada. I know it's on the pricey side but I bought a bottle and I love it so much I probably won't ever use anything else and I would highly recommend this to everybody. Not only is it awesome but it smells absolutely amazing. Us Canadians and our conifer trees. It is also pharmaceutical grade so you can use it for health benefits as well. Use it for wounds etc.

I probably sound like a sales man at this point. I am not affiliated with them.

I just want to recommend this to everybody because it truly is awesome and should be in every scientists or hobbyist's lab and also because the whole clear nail polish thing really grinds my gears, man. If I can help people get away from that clear nail polish thing then I am happy I could help.

Also others have mentioned Aylmers School Glue. I have indeed tried the clear school glue from Aylmers. And it wasn't bad. Totally better than nail polish, however I had found found that it had a slight haze. I am not sure what the refractive index is for the glue. I found it to be passible but still wasn't happy with the slight haze. I also tried clear gorilla Glue and it had the same result.

Anyway I hope this helps people get away from the nail polish.

If anybody decides to try the Canada Balsam gum. I would be happy to hear what you think of it.

[MicroBob]

Hi Red_Green,
do you have access to xylene, the common intermedium for canadabalsam?
Half a year ago you wrote about using the sap of your white pine tree as a montant - how well have these slides lasted so far?
Price wise the canadabalsam you linked is quite ok as it is a very big bottle. If one could split it up and share with a few other microscopists it would be fairly cheap in fact.

For my botanic sections I like to use Euparal as it has no problems with a little residual water in the section and can be used with isopropanol as intermedium, but it probably is not available for everyone.

Bob

[Hobbyst46]

One important disadvantage of nail polish, which I know of but have never seen in the print, is that it is not compatible with immersion oil. So IF nail polish is used as mountant, and the specimen deserves imaging under immersion oil, the coverslip rims should be sealed with a stuff that resists the oil.

[EYE C U]

thinned out it works great

[Kevin_r]

With this Nail polish discussion,
I am wondering if you could preserve nail polish imprint.

[Red_Green]

Hi Red_Green,
do you have access to xylene, the common intermedium for canadabalsam?
Half a year ago you wrote about using the sap of your white pine tree as a montant - how well have these slides lasted so far?
Price wise the canadabalsam you linked is quite ok as it is a very big bottle. If one could split it up and share with a few other microscopists it would be fairly cheap in fact.

For my botanic sections I like to use Euparal as it has no problems with a little residual water in the section and can be used with isopropanol as intermedium, but it probably is not available for everyone.

Bob

The bizarre thing I found that while researching all this, is that mounting mediums are illegal for anybody to purchase without a commercial science lab permits and such.
Yet I can go to Canadian Tire and purchase a large container of xylene for $12.

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/solv ... g_q=xylene

Which makes no sense at all.

I can buy pure Canada balsam gum and xylene separately and make more "canada balsam" that is already mixed and commercially available. Clearly our laws regarding this are broken.

As for the White Pine resin I collected and used. It was okay. The trees did not produce very much and what little they did produce, was just as good as Canada Balsam. The only problem was that because it was not filtered it did contain tiny pieces of organic material. If one had the proper resources and skills the could filter it to be just as good as Canada Balsam. As far as the mounts I made with it they are still just as good today as the day I made them.

All of the ones with nail polish have not held up and no good now.

I would like to try Euparal but it is not available in Canada.

[TonyT]

Canada Balsam available in Canada !!

$50.00 will get you a life-time supply. Highly recommended, I have been using it for years.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Canada-Balsam-F ... xycmBS3Yut

[MicroBob]

As for the White Pine resin I collected and used. It was okay. The trees did not produce very much and what little they did produce, was just as good as Canada Balsam. The only problem was that because it was not filtered it did contain tiny pieces of organic material. If one had the proper resources and skills the could filter it to be just as good as Canada Balsam. As far as the mounts I made with it they are still just as good today as the day I made them.

Interesting to hear! The resin can probably cleaned up by filtering after dissolving in xylene and evaporating much of the xylene afterwards. Altogether a messy process but it could be done if necessary.
If mountants are really not legally available this would be quite an unfortunate situation as is would block a sector of citizen science activities. When I was a boy the lack of a proper moutant was among the things that brought me away from microscopy. Here in Germany we have similar problems, but when looking close there is at least a certain margin in wich some stuff is still available, but not from every company.

[Red_Green]

Canada Balsam available in Canada !!

$50.00 will get you a life-time supply. Highly recommended, I have been using it for years.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Canada-Balsam-F ... xycmBS3Yut

This dude knows what I'm talking about. This Canada Balsam is truly magnificent.

Interesting to hear! The resin can probably cleaned up by filtering after dissolving in xylene and evaporating much of the xylene afterwards. Altogether a messy process but it could be done if necessary.
If mountants are really not legally available this would be quite an unfortunate situation as is would block a sector of citizen science activities. When I was a boy the lack of a proper mounting was among the things that brought me away from microscopy. Here in Germany we have similar problems, but when looking close there is at least a certain margin in which some stuff is still available, but not from every company.

I have a sensitivity to chemicals. So I just use it organic by itself and it works fine. Just takes a long time to dry probably. I keep the slides in a wooden slide box, stood upright so they can sit and work there magic on there own. So far no issues.

I don't know if mountants are truly illegal. Just restriced maybe. I know I can get a tiny bottle of synthetic Balsam from Amscope that comes in a little kit with plastic tweezers. I don't know if they would actually ship it to Canada or not as it does say it is subject to DOT restrictions and even if they did it would be around $70. So not worth it. I did come across maybe two others of the more high ended, modern kinds but they were into the hundreds of dollars. That's too much.

I can understand why people could become frustrated and turned off from science and microscopy.

It's too bad. I mean on one hand, I can understand that people's "home labs" don't have the proper ventilation systems of which is needed to work with toxic chemicals.
But on the other, I don't really think that somebody making a microscope slide here and there is such a big risk.

[JGardner]

If mountants are really not legally available this would be quite an unfortunate situation as is would block a sector of citizen science activities.

This is getting to be a significant problem in the US, where it can sometimes be impossible for amateur scientists to acquire chemicals. The two stated reasons are terrorism (building bombs) and drugs (making meth). Some states are more restrictive than others—my state has banned sales of common solvents like xylene to ostensibly control air pollution.

[Bryan]

I’ve been using the synthetic Canada Balsam but it seem to dry out in the bottle before I can use it all. Does anyone add more Xylene to get it to a workable viscosity? If so how much would I need to add? I realize that depends on how much I have and how dry it is so maybe I should just add a few drops and let it set for a while.

[MicroBob]

Some people mess around a lot with chemicals and don't dispose them properly. This is difficult to avoid if people don't have the right mind set. So it makes sense to limit the sale of many chemicals. But these limitations could make exceptions for acceptable uses, amounts an disposal situations. In many cases you can buy the same stuff as a product for specific use or as part of a product, where proper disposal is not guaranteed too. When looking a bit closer some sources can be found. One is the artist supply where solvents and resins are used for painting: https://www.artistsemporium.net/product ... sh-WN-75ml

Bob

[EYE C U]

I'LL TAKE THE SMELL OF NAIL POLISH OVE EUPARAL...THAT STUFF STINKS OUT THE HOUSE.NOT TO MENTION TAKES A LOOOOOONG TIME TO SET

[mrsonchus]

Hi, I use a synthetic resin called Histomount together with it's solvent Histoclear, for permanent mounts of my sections.
The Histoclear is a limonene-based product that smells quite strongly but only of oranges!
The Histomount doesn't really smell much at all, as it's only used literally drop-by-drop for mounting.

These two work extremely well together and are my mainstay mounting medium and solvent/clearing agent for permanent-slide making.

Synthetic Resin Mountant

Histomount.jpg (60.93 KiB) Viewed 10880 times

Limonene-Based Solvent/Clearing Agent

Histoclear.JPG (19.17 KiB) Viewed 10880 times

They're both available to the private individual microscopist such as myself, here in the U.K. at least.

[Microworld Steve]

That's good for the UK, but where can I find it in the US?
It looks like some good medium and I'd like to get some.

[mrsonchus]

That's good for the UK, but where can I find it in the US?
It looks like some good medium and I'd like to get some.

Hi Steve, they're U.S. made - a search will likely find them over your way.

[TonyT]

EMS sells Histomount and a zillion other mountants:
http://www.emsdiasum.com/microscopy/pro ... media.aspx

[Microworld Steve]

EMS sells Histomount and a zillion other mountants:
http://www.emsdiasum.com/microscopy/pro ... media.aspx

Thank you TonyT. I'll check them out and maybe order from them.

[Microworld Steve]

That's good for the UK, but where can I find it in the US?
It looks like some good medium and I'd like to get some.

Hi Steve, they're U.S. made - a search will likely find them over your way.

Thank you mrsonchus. I searched and I found.