History
By the turn of the 19th century, nails were tinted with scented red oils, and polished or buffed with a chamois cloth, rather than simply polished. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, people pursued a polished rather than painted look by massaging tinted powders and creams into their nails, then buffing them shiny. One such polishing product sold around this time was Graf's Hyglo nail polish paste. Some people during this period painted their nails with an air brush. After the creation of automobile paint, Cutex produced the first modern nail polishes in 1917 with the introduction of colored nail glosses.
Nail polish originated in China. It started off being made from a combination of beeswax, egg whites, gelatin, vegetable dyes, and gum arabic. Egyptians used orange henna. The orange henna would stain their fingernails. Back in the 1300 BC, the color of the nail polish symbolized the ranking of social class each individual earned. The colors gold and silver were considered to be the royal colors; however, were later changes to black and red.
Once nail polish was refined, it was often used in the place of gloves to cover up the grime underneath the nails.
Colored nail polish was also considered at one time self-mutilation by psychiatrists and unhealthy. Despite this, the first lady to wear solid colors was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Read more about this topic: Nail Polish
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