Me and My Nail Polish History

Like so many of us girls, I had the cheapo nail polishes for kids (although never Tinkerbell, I think I missed out). Sometimes when my parents went out of town we had a family friend move in with my brother and myself and she would paint my nails reds and pinks! But I really have no memories of anything specific from when I was young.

I completely forgot about my flirt with nail art in middle school. My mother reminded me about it a few weeks ago. Long story, get the popcorn...

Growing up I was always that super friendly girl that teachers loved to sit the new kids next too. At the very least, the new person had people to eat lunch with on their first day. One day in 8th grade English, a new girl came in and was sat right next to me. I was happy for the distraction because it was my second time reading "Fahrenheit 451" (Oy! Depressing book!). I looked over and this girl had the most beautiful natural nails I had seen on anyone my age. So I asked how she had such pretty nails. She looked and my well bitten fingers and said rather rudely, "I don't bite my nails." Needless to say, she had a place to sit for lunch on the first day, but never again, little brat! ;)

So I stopped biting my nails that very day. I stopped and haven't bitten my nails since. I guess I was lucky, some people have a really hard time with it. Anyway, after a few months, I had lovely long nails too. They were uneven and funky shapes, but I was still learning. Then one day, in a Walgreen's, I saw a Sally Hansen Nail Art Kit! It had shinny foil strips in several color and rhinestones! Rhinestones! I had never seen anything like that before! Had to buy the kit. They showed some examples in the kit, but I really went to town. Every single nail was painted cream and a shimmery medium pink. The cream was on top and the pink underneath but the way they met was a diagonal across the nail, base to opposite top. Then I used THREE foil strips in different color to accentuate the diagonal line. THEN, I added colored rhinestones to the the cream part on top. Sealed it all with a top coat (although I had never heard or used one before, it just helped keep the foil in place). Every single finger was like this, this waaaaaaaaaaaaay over done mani. And I was one of the smallest girls in my class, I have no idea how I was able to fit all that on my tiny nails!

Well, I caused quite a sensation in middle school after that first fan-freaking-tastic mani, lol. Girls were literally grabbing my hands to look at them as I walked down hallways to class. Everyone in my PE class was late that day because we were staring at my nails. Needless to say, the Sally Hansen Nail Art Kit became quite popular with my friends. And we all tried to outdo each other! Like the one girl who painted all her nails white then used rhinestones to add dots or pips like on dice or domino's! How she got five rhinestones to fit on her fingers is beyond me.

Eventually, it got too expensive (the kit was like six whole dollars... each!) and the novelty wore off. I went back to plain single colors and my still misshapen, uneven nails... good times, good times.

I completely stopped wearing anything on my nails for my whole high school career, almost like a I forgot about it. My best friend did have a 3-way buffer and we used to buff the hell out of our nails. Oh the damage!

After high school when I started to get more into makeup (and not drugstore, I was and am a makeup snob), I found all these way over priced *pretty* colors. I had several pretty Lancome colors including a holiday mini set with a red glitter (tres cool). But I was never serious about it and it was just an every once in awhile thing. I even ((gasp)) would let my mani wear off on it's own, chips and all. Even with no base or top coat, it took weeks. I had finally learned to file my nails though, so some progress. I started with the 3-way buffer and went from the most course to the shine section to seal off my nails (worked great and I still do it most of the time).

I became a serious swing dancer, I taught, and entered competitions and generally had a blast. But it was not popular to wear any np with my swing scene, so I never did. We wore vintage clothes and shoes (they don't make great stuff like that anymore, even with the too small shoes). God, I miss it!

It wasn't until I was on makeupalley.com for a few years that I rediscovered nail polish. But just for periodic pedis. I had naturally strong and fairly nice tips, so I saw no need to adorn them with polish, not even clear. Then my SO dropped a very heavy kitchen thingy on my toe, that is when I *really* got back into polish. I needed to cover up the gigantic bruise that was under my big toe nail (can't believe I didn't loose the nail). Well my sheer safe colors wouldn't cover the black and blue, so I went darker and darker. I blame it on Chanel Black Satin, like too many of us, I paid tons of money for it, but I loved it! And somehow, someway a switch was thrown and I was hooked!

For years I had been trying to fulfill my desire to have more color in my life by buying eye shadows of every color in the rainbow. But most of them looked horrible on me! Esp the greens and blues I really wished I could wear, they just clashed with my light olive skin. But nail polish... nail polish was something different. My hands being mobile gave me more freedom to experiment with color that looked bad on my face. Very freeing and fun!

I now have over 1000 nail polishes (OMG!) and still want more. I am a collector at heart and the thrill of the hunt when I find a really hard to find color gives me a little happy moment. The rest is history, I'm an addict and collector and love it.

I wonder what will happen next...

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