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Fashion models used to continuously sport red nail polish as the epitome of glamour, but it seems the French Manicure is now the choice. You have to admit it’s elegant, and doesn’t take anything away from one’s ensemble by color-clashing. Furthermore, since it comes in different hues, every skin tone is flattered, while nails look shiny and healthy. But I still find myself equating fancy occasions with good, old fashioned nail color…

Before my first day in “all day school” at age six, my mom painted my nails red, at my request. I have the distinct memory of a black-robed nun looming over my little desk, glaring and bellowing, “You look like you’ve got blood on your hands!” Needless to say, it was about 10 years before I could bring myself to wear red nail polish again.

In high school, I did purple polish for a long time because an older girl who I emulated wore it. Then I wore dark bronze because the most popular girl in school painted her 2 inch long talons with it. For a short while, I did red glitter, and I even remember one girl finding nail designs somewhere, long before they became standard accessories in retail outlets. Nail salons did not exist back then, and the idea of paying someone a lot of money to glue on fake nails and then "fill them in" would have seemed ludicrous to everyone.

Eventually, I became a nail guru, just like I was a lipstick guru (see my article “The Allure of Lipstick” from January.) I mixed and overlapped colors, and found that some of my mother’s favorites weren’t so bad after all. For example, there was a polish similar to clear, but distinctly pink. The benefit was that nails looked super shiny and clean, but much more healthy than normal. However, it also made the white part of the nail pink as well, so to counteract that, a special white nail pencil was needed. A gal would wet it and then color under the white part of her nail to make it appear brighter. (It was the precursor to the white application of French Manicures, without the longevity of polish. But it was never done on pedicures like today, to my knowledge.)

Anyway, by the time I was a working girl, it was clear that I needed to do my nails at least every other day to keep them looking fresh. Being one of those people who can’t stand seeing her polish chipped, I faced a dilemma, since I had read that a person should not use nail polish remover more than once a week, as it ruins the nails. So I started going the “all natural” route, buffing my nails like crazy. I even found this wonderful gizmo in Philadelphia (never to be found anywhere else again) that was a sea shell to be used as an all-natural emery board that would never wear out. (It didn’t wear out but I did lose it.) I found that to keep my nails looking beautiful naturally was a whole lot more work than just slapping a coat of polish on them.

And so began the cycle: a few days of wearing polish, then a few days of going nail-naked. It seemed to work, as rarely would my nails break. But if one did, nail guru as I was, I’d file the rest down so all ten would be even, and I still do that. It’s one of those fashion eccentricities we all have.

Today, I find myself doing as my mom did-keeping all nail supplies and bottles of polish in a small container, to be easily carried from room to room by my daughter or I to do our nails when time allows. I wish I could remember if my mother nagged me for wearing gaudy colors like I’ve nagged my daughter about wearing black. (But I guess it’s the sign of the times, since one of her male friends came over also wearing it.) Hopefully soon, she’ll, too, get past that phase. One of these day’s she’ll see the sense of wearing only the colors nature intended for nails, such as blood red, cotton candy pink and shimmering peach, right?