Nail varnish has become the top-selling fashion accessory, replacing lipstick as an affordable indulgence in austere times and leading to a boom in sales as consumers flock to buy bright-coloured bottles. [...] In France, over the whole of 2010, perfume sales in department stores rose 2 percent. Over the same period nail colour jumped 42 percent, according to global market research company NPD.
— And there are even more nail polish blogs than perfume blogs. Quote is from Beauty industry sees growth at its fingertips at Money Control.
Not surprising really, but didn’t it use to be lipstick that women bought when they wanted to cheer themselves up in times of hardship?
I like nail polish – I wouldn’t discuss it ad nauseam on a message board, but I like it: Except that, for me, it’s a Catch 22 situation: if I don’t wear it, my nails grow long and strong because I can massage cream/oil regularly into them, but, if I wear nail polish and therefore can’t treat them, they become brittle and break. So I can usually only wear nail polish for a couple of weeks before I have to stop. I’ve tried using a base, etc. Nothing works.
I can vouch for the “cheering up” effect…I only do my toe nails & I do them in pretty much the same color every time, yet every so often I have an urge to buy, even though I’m buying a color that is nearly identical to those I already own. It’s quite silly. I used to buy eye shadow in the same way (always the same basic shade, yet kept on buying!) and at least nail polish is cheaper.
The nail color blogs are really helpful if you want to see real life images of the colors, and I love when they do a whole hand in different brands of the same color family, but otherwise, no, I don’t read them and can’t think that I’d ever comment on one. But the nail people probably think the perfume people are nuts, right?
I’m with you – there’s something about a new bottle of nail polish that is just cheering, innit? Even if it’s the same damn shade you always wear. Doesn’t matter. It’s cheery!
xo
Exactly! Even the names cheer me up.
I’m glad I only have one real “health and beauty” vice. But it’s a whopper of one.
What’s the average price of decent nail lacquers nowadays? There are an awful lot of purty colors out there.
Varies…Chanel is about $25, cheapie drugstore polish can be had for less than $5. I like relatively cheap but not that cheap…the Opi at Sephora range ($9) and Essie ($8) are my favorites. It’s cheaper than when I used to buy eyeshadows! And I don’t really buy that much.
I’m in the same position with nail polish as I am with perfume. I own more than I could ever use in a lifetime but both collections continue to grow. I read the nail blogs because, just like perfume, most of the really good stuff isn’t ever going to show up in the local mall. I don’t think I’ve ever commented on one but people will ask how similar one color is to another or about the quality of the polish but aside from that, there isn’t really much to discuss.
Joe, a “niche” polish goes for about $18 US but you can certainly spend more, OPI and Essie, which are the equivalent of a mainstream department store perfume are about $8.50 US and there’s plenty of good stuff to be found in the drug store. New colors are released in collections and you usually buy more than one so it’s cheaper than perfume but, as my husband observed, they “travel in packs.”
I don’t read the nail polish blogs too much. I do have a ton of it though. It’s always a pick-me-up purchase like lipstick and lip balm. I do have a limit to what I’ll spend on polish though. I have no problem saving my pennies for perfume but I won’t spend $20 on a polish. No way, no how.
Roger that. When I’m the one pulling out my wallet, I stick to OPI and Essie. But my husband has bought me Chanel a few times, and I was rather pleased. No logic whatsoever.