As the nails on my fingers change from pink to black to gold, I wonder why in the world women (or men) ever decided that putting a random color on their nails was a good idea. Who was the first person to look at the nail beds at the end of their fingers and think, "Yeah, these need some color"? It turns out that nail polish has quite the history.
It all started over five thousand years ago in ancient Babylon, where only the toughest soldiers wore nail art to strike fear into their enemies during battle. It then spread to ancient China where the wealthy class used bold colors such as red, or metallic colors of silver and gold to flaunt their power and wealth. These nail colors were made by combining beeswax, egg whites and gelatin, and were colored by adding dyes made from orchids or roses. The poorer class used plain nude colors on their fingernails, and could be arrested or evenly publicly executed for wrongfully wearing bright colors. Nail polish then spread from China into India, Africa, and the Middle East, and became especially popular in Egypt where Cleopatra used plant extracts to dye her nails blood red.
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Nail polish and nail art didn't spread into Europe until the late 19th century when the first nail salon opened in Paris, France. Nail polish soon became mainstream in France, and King Louis' nail manicurist is to thank for the first ever nail file, made from a dental tool. In the late 19th century, the first nail salon in the U.S. was opened in Manhattan by a woman named Mary Cobb, who created nail products and even wrote a book on how to do manicures at home. It was then in the U.S. that many new nail inventions were created, such as liquid nail polish, acrylic nails, and the famous French manicure (that's right, French manicures are actually an American thing, invented in Hollywood!)
So there you have it, the quick history of this weird thing we call nail polish. The next time you break out the nail kit, give a quick thank you to the fierce Babylonian warriors for their trend-setting manicures.
