What
a nail polish stash says about society at large
Before I moved to Honolulu to study abroad for
the final year of my BAs nail polish was something I would randomly smear on my
nails whenever a significant occasion would present itself, and then gradually
pick off over the course of the following days/weeks (depending on how many
boring lectures I'd attend). I had already been to the US for vacations prior
to my move and knew it was a shopping mecca for a heavily taxated North
European, so for months before going I refrained from any material temptations.
As a result I arrived in Honolulu with savings specifically dedicated to
shopping and an empty suitcase.
As those savings emptied I discovered a nifty
trick: A bottle of nail polish could spice up almost any boring old look at the
passable cost of 5-8 dollars, and so the seeds to my polish infatuation were
sown. Before long I could intuitively spot the outline, shadow or logo of a
bottle of Essie or OPI at astonishing distances and would track it down without
any hesitations, thinking to myself "is that a bottle of Big Apple
Red?". Soon I would roam the streets of Honolulu hunting for new polish
joints. The best places would always be the dodgy drug marts / souvenir shops
where a large plastic bin would typically hold the potential of delivering an
amazing find. Before long I had, needless to say, accumulated a solid collection
of varnishes. Little did I know what I had come across.
Not so many decades ago, women had to search
long and hard to locate more than a dozen or two of shades if they wanted to
paint their nails for special occasions or everyday indulging. That all changed
in the early 1980's as two of the now leading brands of nail lacquers, OPI and
Essie, saw the light of day and largely changed the way women thought about
nail varnish. The signifiers of their products were not the then usual numbers
that had previously been used to identify that burning coral red or the subtle
baby pink; instead (I don't know who started the practice, both brands are
recognized for it although OPI tends to do more word play that Essie, the more
conservative one of the two) you could now go to the salon and have your nails
painted in the hue of "Ballet Slippers" or "I don't give a
Rotterdam". It was a brilliant move, not only filling a gap in the
consumers' life they didn't even know existed, but giving those gaps names that
would stick even after the polish had been removed. Since then the market for
nail lacquers has exploded, it's an affordable luxury item. Today a quick
google search will reveal an excess of nail bloggers who will review formulas,
swatch colors (nail/color lingo for uploading - preferably - high quality
photos in good lighting that displays the true color of a polish as it may be
impossible to tell all the qualities of a color while it's in the bottle) and
analyze the details of new collections (brands like OPI and Essie typically
release 4-6 collections per year), identifying dupes or duplicates (colors that are
indistinguishable from each other across brands and years), debating
similarities between China Glaze's For Audrey and Essie's Mint Candy
Apple (one has more green) and listing detailed facts about personal polish
collections sufficient in size to repaint The White House into a thousand
similar, slightly different whites. Surely, the internet has made this galore
possible, but one may ask herself as she's about to buy her 5th cobalt blue
polish (they're not the same, they're similar), what's in a color?
As my own collection has grown (yet not to the
point of making possible a White House paint-job) I have been increasingly
confronted by this question. Not so much by myself as by my better half with
whom I've cohabited for two years by now, and with whom I've moved from Canada
to Switzerland. I mention this as it was the first incident when the matter of
my tendency was brought up. And it was, for the apparent reason that if you're
suddenly faced with the need to transport 7 kilos worth of nail polish across
the atlantic in a check-in bag, you may find yourself endeavoring to devise a
protective russian doll-like construction of nail polishes in ziploc bags in
socks in shoes. This venture will be noted. And comments will be made. In my
case they were not understanding.
Following this confrontation I found myself much
more aware to keep my 'hobby' under the radar, because I knew he would never
understand it, similar to how I would never understand the need to own five
pairs of skis or four pairs of soccer shoes – yet I didn’t judge him, nor did
anyone else it seemed. It boggled me: to me they represented the same material
refuge from everyday life. when you're painting your nails, racing across that
field, flying down that slope, you're not thinking about your tax returns or
the constantly returning task of vacuuming your white tile floors - You're
simply suspended from reality for a short while.
But at some point a collection of anything
material grows beyond the point where it's a simple afternoon or hours worth of
serene, thoughtless refuge.
As pastime hobbies and leisurely pursuits are
being transformed from exactly what they are - relaxing diversions from the
stresses of modern life that we engage in solely for our own, selfish enjoyment
- into resources increasingly seen and thought of deliberately as a way of
investing in our ability to be ever more efficient workers, producing ever more
cost-effective, streamlined labor in all aspects of our existence, exorbitant
collections of nail lacquers, skis or soccer shoes may serve as a form of
seizure of power against the fiscalization of our lives. Yet they do so through
the means of it, thereby possibly mocking it further. "Oh, how joyous it
is to be the owner of something as useless as 500 bottles of nail polish!"
In your face, cost efficienct society. I refuse to play your game.
The differences in how our respective
collections of polish and ski-gear were perceived (even by myself) I now know
has to do with gender ideals- and images more than anything else. Nail polish
is a product tagged as overly feminine and perhaps therefore frivolous and
excessive, and there is a difference in how men and women are perceived
engaging with these terms. The playfulness which women enter into by collecting
and using nail polish has to do with enhancing femininity and sexuality, but in
recent years have also changed from being ghetto to fashion. Being a little
girl in the 90´s I still remember some of the nail polishes my mom would wear
on special occassions, and I would sigh at the thought of getting to wear them
myself, they were like breasts - aspirational and completely representative of
the womanly. My parents were openminded people, but they didn't feel it
was appropriate for their 6-year old child to sport a vampy red nail color, and
thus it was forbidden and therefore even more alluring to my greedy eyes. And I
can still visualize the results of my renegade polish heist one afternoon; my
fingertips covered in lumpy red paint and my moms reaction when she discovered
the marks on the couch. There's something so ridiculously femme-fatale-sexy, in
that completely stereotypical understanding of what sexy embodies, about red
nails. Today the range of colors considered appropriate to wear is ever
expanding and I can wear red any day if I want to, the aspirational level
inherent in the product is of course intact even as one reaches polish
maturity.
Given the thoughts I've been giving to my silly
obsession it struck a cord in me lately when I saw that OPI had released a Bond
Girls-themed collection of colors. (Yes, as in James Bond; they often
pair up with singers or film productions.) Now, sure I'll buy a polish from a
Shrek- or Muppets collection, but were they really designing and selling
women nail colors representing the possibly most blatantly misogynistic series
of films ever produced? Were OPI mocking those who bake their bread and churn
their butter? I had the feeling they were. What was I to make out of this? What
aspirational level was implied in this line of products? As I stood there,
examining hues like "Pussy Galore" - sure, naming the female lead
'Pussy' is totally fine, not discriminating at all - I suddenly lost my
appetite for color.
This was all until I made the realisation that
perhaps something entirely different was at play here. That polish-mania, both
my own and the overall polish-mania of the entire blogosphere, perhaps serves
as a way of claiming the female right to frivolousness and a way of taking
charge of previous depictions and imagery of female sexuality through its
excesses. But who really knows? Until I know more, I will keep calm and paint
on with a smile on my face and a polish collection that is now living a public
life on display in our shared home.
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