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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house Stuffworks dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today let me describe

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Speaker 1: what my nails look like to you listeners and to

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Speaker 1: you because you gotta look really, really close to see

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Speaker 1: the faint remainders of a manicure that I got a

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Speaker 1: few weeks ago because I was a maid of honor

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Speaker 1: and a wedding. I'm very proud of that, and the

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Speaker 1: bride sent a just you know, a mere suggestion of

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Speaker 1: the women should the bridesman should get manicures, and so

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Speaker 1: I still have the remains of bubble bath on my nails.

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Speaker 1: Sounds lovely. Yeah, it was a very very very faint

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Speaker 1: pink I see, which, as we will learn later in

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Speaker 1: the podcast, was a lot like some of the earliest

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Speaker 1: manicures into Vogue exactly. But I'm not I don't I

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Speaker 1: typically don't wear nail polish on my fingers. I've actually

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Speaker 1: started wearing nail polish a little bit more often than

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Speaker 1: I used to because I don't know why color on

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Speaker 1: my nails to me, makes my hands look strange. It's distracting.

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Speaker 1: It can be distracting if you pick a wild color.

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Speaker 1: But I can't actually get manicures too often, A because

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Speaker 1: I don't want to spend the money. But be Um,

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Speaker 1: I have really kind of flimsy nails and nail polish

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Speaker 1: doesn't quite stay on. We'll just slide right up, just

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Speaker 1: into a puddle right at my fingertips. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: hard to stay on, and so I don't want to

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Speaker 1: spend I mean, I can see spending the money to

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Speaker 1: get like one of those man manicures, you know where

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Speaker 1: they where they do the lotion and they do the

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Speaker 1: the trimming and the buffing and whatever, the little hand massage,

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Speaker 1: but they don't actually put the polish on, Like I

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Speaker 1: would go in for that. But I don't want to

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Speaker 1: go pay for expend to polish, especially gel nails. It's

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Speaker 1: a lot to keep up. Um. And even though you

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Speaker 1: and I are not huge nail manicure fanatics, we wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk about nail polished today because of two articles

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Speaker 1: that came out in the New York Times Style section

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Speaker 1: the first week of April that had really hammered home

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Speaker 1: the fact nail polish is having quite a moment. It

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Speaker 1: is never mind the entire long history of nail polish.

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Speaker 1: This is the era of the fingernail. This is now

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Speaker 1: for the nail. Nail polish has become, according to the

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Speaker 1: New York Times article by Ruth law Fair, la the

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Speaker 1: fastest growing segment of the beauty trade, with sales even

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Speaker 1: higher than lipstick. And speaking of lipstick, we got to

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Speaker 1: talk about the economy and women's cosmetics for a minute,

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Speaker 1: because we've talked about the lipstick index before, which was

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Speaker 1: this phrase that was is created by Leonard Louder of Estay,

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Speaker 1: Louder saying that during the Great Depression, lipstick sales went

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Speaker 1: up because it was still a small luxury that women

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Speaker 1: were able to purchase. So if you want to see

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Speaker 1: how the economy is doing, watch cosmetic sales because when

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Speaker 1: they go up, the stock markets probably going down. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is a theory that a number of economists have debunked.

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Speaker 1: But sorry, folks, we've got to introduce you to the

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Speaker 1: lacquer index, right Uh, the whole lipstick index flash. Lacquer

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Speaker 1: index idea was spot on in because nail polished sales

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Speaker 1: were up thirteen point seven per cent, and if you

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Speaker 1: just look at Revlon alone, their sales were over one

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Speaker 1: point three billion dollars in And there are some examples

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Speaker 1: of how nail polished brands are really sparking, just kind

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Speaker 1: of with some insanity people. Chanel, Yeah, Chanel, there was

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Speaker 1: this color. I don't I really don't want to try

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Speaker 1: to bust out of French accent right now. I never

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Speaker 1: took French, I did, so it's it's a color. It's

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Speaker 1: like a mushroom gray color. That is a French word

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Speaker 1: for particular. I'm not gonna say it either. I feel foolish. Particular. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's close, and that's all I got. Just if you

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Speaker 1: want to pronounce the French word, just say it in

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Speaker 1: the back of your throat like you're coughing, and that's

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Speaker 1: what it sounds like. Particular perfect nail polish. Also, that'd

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Speaker 1: be hard to say if you were wearing it. I

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, what color is that? You'd have to

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Speaker 1: bust that out. It's particular. But yeah, there was this

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Speaker 1: two thousand tin color from Chanel, which was really just

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Speaker 1: a gray brown, pretty drab color. It was so popular,

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Speaker 1: um it was called the it color for that year.

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Speaker 1: That they were waiting lists and bidding wars on eBay,

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Speaker 1: and NBC New York mentioned um that the previous Chanel

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Speaker 1: It color, which was jade, much easier to pronounce. It's

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Speaker 1: not it's not jah day perhaps jade. A bottle of

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Speaker 1: jade on eBay fetched up to two hundred bucks. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't understand. I do think it's interesting that Chanel

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Speaker 1: is such a leader. I mean, Chanel is a fancy brand.

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Speaker 1: Most people can't afford their clothes or their handbags. But

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Speaker 1: and this is the whole idea behind like simple luxuries

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Speaker 1: when the economy is bad, Chanel nail polish is very

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Speaker 1: popular and it's a major trend setter. It's funny because

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Speaker 1: when they put out a color, they're immediately waiting lists

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Speaker 1: and people bidding over it on eBay, and then the

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Speaker 1: copycats start, and then it ends up in magazines, and

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Speaker 1: then it ends up on your fingers because all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, you think, hey, maybe mushroom isn't so ugly,

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Speaker 1: so there you go, or if you don't like mushroom.

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Speaker 1: Ruth la Farrett New York Times also reported on a

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Speaker 1: niche company called Strange Beautiful that apparently introduced a color

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Speaker 1: meant to mimic menstrual blood. That's right. I mean, aren't

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Speaker 1: there a million kinds of reds? Couldn't you just pick

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Speaker 1: one without having to do that? I mean, menstrual blood

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Speaker 1: is a pretty particular shade of red, apparently, I guess, yeah,

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Speaker 1: for everybody, it's different. I don't know, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. That is a good question. But anyway, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's apparently having this fashion moment, and also

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Speaker 1: the New York Times I'm i gotta say it laughably

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Speaker 1: followed up with a reactionary piece too, green and yellow

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Speaker 1: shades that are having a moment right now, thanks two

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Speaker 1: stars like Katie Perry and Nicki Minash, who were also

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Speaker 1: with the crazy colors on their nails, and Stephanie Rose

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Speaker 1: and Bloom went on interviewed a number of men to

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Speaker 1: get their thoughts on these green and yellow shades, and boy,

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Speaker 1: howdy do they not like them? Know? And Richard Dorman,

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Speaker 1: and editor at Esquire, was particular pularly upset. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he really has it out for these colors. He said,

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Speaker 1: it's the color of mucus, it's the color of infection,

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Speaker 1: It's the color of old piano keys. But no, he

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Speaker 1: doesn't stop. There, doesn't there, he doesn't, He keeps going.

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Speaker 1: He really yellow must have hurt him as a child somehow.

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Speaker 1: He says, it's like wearing ugs, it's like wearing ponchos.

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Speaker 1: It's all of the things that can found the male psyche.

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Speaker 1: So he's basically pointing out, like women, why do you

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Speaker 1: do such weird things that don't appeal to men? Why

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Speaker 1: would you ever do something like that? Although I gotta

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Speaker 1: say hats off to the guy she quoted, not not

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Speaker 1: dormant from Esquire, but she quoted another guy comparing the

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Speaker 1: yellows and greens to old school high see um Ecto cooler,

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Speaker 1: which was the promotional drink for Ghostbusters. Right, I drank

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Speaker 1: that in second grade. Yeah, and he knocked it. Now

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Speaker 1: you can rock it on your fingertips. I know. But

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Speaker 1: why are we talking about nail posh? Because the thing

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Speaker 1: is with these trend pieces, they are kind of funny

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Speaker 1: when you consider the history of nail polish that goes

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Speaker 1: back as far as oh, five thousand BC. There's nothing

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Speaker 1: new about us painting our nails. Yeah, we I mean,

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Speaker 1: we do it for various reasons. But it's been going

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Speaker 1: on for quite a while. It just seems like maybe

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Speaker 1: we're wearing more outrageous shades more often. But let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the history. Yeah. Back in five thousand BC, women

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Speaker 1: in India were dying their fingertips with hanna, which is

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Speaker 1: still it's not an unusual practice today either. Um. And

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Speaker 1: then in three thousand BC, the Chinese painted their nails

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Speaker 1: with an interesting mixture of egg whites, beeswax, gelatine, arabic gum,

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Speaker 1: and vegetable die and the color was chosen according to

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Speaker 1: what the ruling dynasty was, usually red or black, depending

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Speaker 1: on who was in power. I wonder if there are

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Speaker 1: d I Y nail polish makers who use that Chinese

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Speaker 1: recipe out there. Maybe it just seems like they would

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Speaker 1: chip off or something. Flake off, fall off be heavy

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Speaker 1: and gross. I don't know. And then in six d BC,

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Speaker 1: and this is coming from a slideshow off of Refinery nine,

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Speaker 1: aristocrats during the Child dynasty in China started wearing these

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Speaker 1: nail guards that look kind of like bugles when you

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Speaker 1: put them on your fingertips, but but rather than being

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Speaker 1: made out of corn product of course, um, these nail

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Speaker 1: guards were made of gold and silver and bejeweled, right,

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Speaker 1: symbolic of wealth and leisure, because I mean, it's not

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Speaker 1: like you could do anything with those things on your fingers.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever tried to type with bugles on your hands,

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Speaker 1: bugles are also the snack of wealth and bega too exactly.

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Speaker 1: And going into Egypt, because as we all know, Egyptian

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Speaker 1: women were trend setters. The upper classes used hannah or

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Speaker 1: sometimes ox blood to achieve a red hue, and the

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Speaker 1: red or the color, the higher the class. So in

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Speaker 1: accord to some of the things we read, Cleopatra preferred

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Speaker 1: brick red. She liked a deeper color. And then hopping

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Speaker 1: forward a number of centuries to the four hundreds, I

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Speaker 1: thought this was really cool. Inca's actually invented nail art

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Speaker 1: as we know it. Uh, they would paint intricate pictures

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Speaker 1: of eagles on their nails. That's I guess it passed

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Speaker 1: the time. Um, and you know, we we didn't have

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of nail nail art history in the

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Speaker 1: Dark Ages in Europe. They were just trying not to die,

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Speaker 1: things to worry about. Um. But women during the Renaissance

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Speaker 1: began manicuring their nails, although they avoided color. So they

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Speaker 1: weren't you know, going out and getting blood to dye

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Speaker 1: their nails with. They were just buffing and shine and

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Speaker 1: just buffing and shina. And then during the Victorian era,

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Speaker 1: um translucent manicures were popular. It was it was a

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Speaker 1: sign of inner purity if your nails were kept buffed

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Speaker 1: and cleaned and polished yea, And they would use different

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Speaker 1: oils to keep them all nice and shiny um. And

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Speaker 1: in nine the first patent for nail polish was granted,

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Speaker 1: and it was a modification of car paint that had

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Speaker 1: a syrup light consistency and a faint pink color, which

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Speaker 1: Kristen was referring to earlier when she talked about her

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Speaker 1: very faint wedding manicure. It was they weren't going crazy,

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Speaker 1: they weren't going dark red or anything controversial. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was the Victorians people. Yeah, I think about it

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Speaker 1: kind of like a lip stain rather than lipstick, just

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Speaker 1: that that very um thin coating of paint. And then

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties the Flappers come along and really

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Speaker 1: red things up on the nails. Yeah, they started the

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Speaker 1: ever popular moon manicure, which I had never heard of,

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Speaker 1: But I feel like it's It's all over the internet.

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Speaker 1: You google moon manicure and people are crazy for it.

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Speaker 1: We'll tell everyone what a moon manicure is. It is

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Speaker 1: painting sort of in the middle of the nail, over

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Speaker 1: your little little moon shape, paler skin on your nail

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Speaker 1: bed and leaving the tips bear. Although there was a

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Speaker 1: variation that painted the whole nail except for the moon.

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Speaker 1: It looks pretty cool. And like you said, there are

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Speaker 1: a ton of vintage advertisements for early nail polish online

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Speaker 1: that show off that that moon manicure if you want

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Speaker 1: to check it out. Um and Flappers also popularized the

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Speaker 1: boulder red nails. But the nineteen thirties is really the

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Speaker 1: decade of nail polished modern nail polish, because in nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty one, Charles Revson gets a job selling cost medics

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Speaker 1: for Elka, which was America's first opaque lacquer brand. And

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Speaker 1: this is coming from a history article off of the

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Speaker 1: Daily dot com um And so he starts selling this

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Speaker 1: nail lacquer and then he teams up with his brother

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Speaker 1: Joseph and Charles Lackman and starts the Revlon Nail Enamel Company.

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Speaker 1: And then in spring nineteen thirty four, Revlon cream colored

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Speaker 1: polish takes off. But this is a revolution nary product

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Speaker 1: because rather than just being more of a stain, it's

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Speaker 1: actually that hard enamel cover that we think of today. Right,

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Speaker 1: And French makeup artist Michelle Minard is credited with the idea,

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Speaker 1: supposedly inspired by auto paint, which makes sense. And in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties um colors, the color spectrum of nail

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Speaker 1: polish really opened up because of the invention of synthetic

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Speaker 1: pigments and solvents. And also on a side note, because

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Speaker 1: of that, there was a trend in the nineteen twenties

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Speaker 1: in France where green nails it was modeled off of

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Speaker 1: highly toxic green fuselage paint for aircraft, suffering for fashion,

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Speaker 1: suffering for fashion. But because we have those synthetic pigments

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Speaker 1: and solvents, we have more colors available. And then Revson

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Speaker 1: and his friends come along and create the uh or

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Speaker 1: recreate I guess the formula for nail polish. Not everybody

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Speaker 1: was so happy with all of these trends in nail polish, however,

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Speaker 1: Dr Carl Manager in four told the American Psychiatric Assists Actian,

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Speaker 1: you know those darn flappers. He said that bobbed hair

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Speaker 1: and painted nails were self mutilations as serious as anorexia

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Speaker 1: and self cutting, so he thought that doing anything unnatural

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Speaker 1: was just horrible. Well, it was like how the you know,

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Speaker 1: excessive use of cosmetics, even just putting on red lipstick

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Speaker 1: started out being associated with prostitutes and actresses who were

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Speaker 1: not held in a very high regard until the rise

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Speaker 1: of Hollywood and the whole movie culture, which is then

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Speaker 1: trickled down through the flappers. So red nails, wanton woman,

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Speaker 1: well manager was in the minority because that same year,

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Speaker 1: dentist Maxwell Lap created the first set of fake nails

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Speaker 1: for clients who bit their nails, So that's where we

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Speaker 1: got that from. And then in nine another dentist, Frederick Slack,

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Speaker 1: accidentally invented the acrylic sculpting nail extension when he was

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Speaker 1: trying to mend a broken nail with acrylic. Thank you dentists,

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Speaker 1: they were all of this nail technology, and really they

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Speaker 1: weren't busy enough. Uh. In the nineteen sixties, pastel shades

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Speaker 1: started to gain popularity, and in the seventies that's when

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Speaker 1: those long fake nails really became popular and took off.

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Speaker 1: And beauty salon started opening at a higher rate to

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Speaker 1: answer demand, and in nineteen seventy six, something that is

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Speaker 1: not actually French was invented. What happened Jeff Paint creates

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Speaker 1: the French manicure and he is the one who founded

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Speaker 1: Orally in nineteen seventy five. And then in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighties we've got, you know, the wild and wacky neon

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Speaker 1: day glo kind of colors. And then in the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: um a lot of red and nude comes back in

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Speaker 1: the style, along with got to talk about goth and

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Speaker 1: grunge and black nails, but especially chipped black nails. But

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Speaker 1: you didn't need nail polish for that. You could just

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Speaker 1: get a sharpie color in your nails a little bit.

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Speaker 1: You're done with it right what it was in that Chanel,

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Speaker 1: speaking of their trendiness, came out with Vamp, which was

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Speaker 1: a really dark red color, and that I feel like

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Speaker 1: just created pandemonium. And then in the two thousands we

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Speaker 1: have the quote unprecedented level of interest in nail art

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Speaker 1: where we start seeing more commonly nail adhesive gel polished

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Speaker 1: at last for a really long time, nail art, you know,

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Speaker 1: you can get cheetah print on your nails. If you

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Speaker 1: want fishnet print, you can get your your honey's face

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Speaker 1: printed on your nails, right, or your cat or whoever. Um.

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Speaker 1: I actually I've tried gel polished before and it absolutely

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Speaker 1: decimated my nails. Yeah, the first time I ever did it,

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, this is what fingernails

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Speaker 1: can look like with the manicure. And you know, they're

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Speaker 1: called the two week manicures because they last so much

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Speaker 1: longer than regular nail polished. But the stuff that I

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Speaker 1: had to soak my hands in to get the stuff

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Speaker 1: off was I don't know, it had to be completely

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Speaker 1: and awfully toxic because my fingers just like disgusting afterwards.

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Speaker 1: So maybe that's not for me. I would of caution, um,

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Speaker 1: and we have I should mention that. Um. We did

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Speaker 1: a podcast now probably a couple of years ago on

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Speaker 1: nail salons and all of those chemicals that go into

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Speaker 1: manicures that you might want to watch out for that

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Speaker 1: can also cause some health problems for nail salon workers.

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Speaker 1: So we've established that nail polish has quite an extensive history.

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Speaker 1: It's nothing new that we're doing, but one thing that

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Speaker 1: seems pretty consistent, especially when you get down to the

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Speaker 1: more granular level of what's happening and all of the

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Speaker 1: fads in the twentieth century, it is very clearly something

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Speaker 1: that becomes associated with beauty and women. While plenty of

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Speaker 1: men might go get manicures, the kind where they just

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Speaker 1: clean up your nails, still for a guy to have

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Speaker 1: on nail polish is a gender bending kind of activity

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Speaker 1: that we first really saw in pop culture in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies with Freddie Mercury and David Bowie sporting blackmail

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Speaker 1: polish and other colors. Right um A Laura talks about

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Speaker 1: Evolution Man, which is a brand of four men only

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Speaker 1: nail polish, and founder Marco Burrodini had fun painting his

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Speaker 1: own nails in an effort to stop himself from biting them,

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Speaker 1: and he said that I love strong colors that make

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Speaker 1: a bold statement with a stark contrast on the skin.

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Speaker 1: And he talks about whether men get the perfect clean

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Speaker 1: manicure suggesting success or power, or a bold color to

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Speaker 1: show they're not confined to society's rules. It's a way

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Speaker 1: to express who they are, to which I say, really, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, do you really need nail polish? For a man,

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Speaker 1: because isn't the mere fact of creating that kind of

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Speaker 1: product for a man, because you have similar products now

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Speaker 1: with makeup to like concealer for men, all these four

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Speaker 1: men that I mean, I get it, marketing and all

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Speaker 1: of that, but it's just can't, can't, can't any I

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Speaker 1: just go grab a thing of Chanel particular because I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to say it in French. Again. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's that, but there's also I mean, is this a

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Speaker 1: realistic trend? I mean maybe for rock stars or what,

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Speaker 1: I don't know whatever, but is your average banker or

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Speaker 1: lawyer going to go pick up a bottle of man

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Speaker 1: polish and painted fingernails? Well, and there is still the

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Speaker 1: thing too of if you are a woman in a

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Speaker 1: nine to five job, if you're wearing a suit to work,

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Speaker 1: I mean, how often do you see those kind of

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Speaker 1: women with super outrageous manicures. There is still kind of

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Speaker 1: a message that it sends if you're not sort of

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Speaker 1: sticking to the more standard kinds of manicures. And again

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Speaker 1: it's like, are we are we putting too much into um?

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Speaker 1: This nail polished at New York Times also had UM

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Speaker 1: an entire room for debate section interviewing I think six

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Speaker 1: or eight people on what this means that we're painting

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Speaker 1: our nails with front colors, and it's everything from oh,

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Speaker 1: well we've just always done this, to the economy to

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Speaker 1: gender to um what else? Just oh luxury and all

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Speaker 1: of that and expressing yourself. Well, you mentioned women, you know,

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Speaker 1: not wearing wild colors in the office. Jennifer Scanlon as

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Speaker 1: part of this big New York Times Peace. She's a

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Speaker 1: professor of gender and women studies at bowd Wine. She

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Speaker 1: says that the emergence of crazy nail colors as a

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Speaker 1: mainstream trend is an issue of privilege and deprivation. And

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Speaker 1: the whole privilege issue is that women must be feeling

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Speaker 1: more at home in a greater variety of settings so

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Speaker 1: they can enter professional settings more comfortably on their own terms,

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Speaker 1: i e. Wearing green nail polish to work well. And

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Speaker 1: if she brings up deprivation too, even though she doesn't

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Speaker 1: pointed out in the column she wrote. Jennas Sours from

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Speaker 1: Jezebel also contributed to the Room for debate on nail polish,

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Speaker 1: and she brings up the fact that nail salons have

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Speaker 1: proliferated things to cheap labor and lax regulatory oversight of

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Speaker 1: the spot in industry, and so we're really relying on

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Speaker 1: a lot of I mean, this is more going and

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Speaker 1: getting your nails and not just buying nail polish and

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Speaker 1: doing it yourself, obviously, but there is still that side

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Speaker 1: of it too, where it is fueled by a lot

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Speaker 1: of immigrant labor and exposure to dangerous chemicals on a

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Speaker 1: daily basis, which all of this has contributed to lower

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Speaker 1: prices because I mean, have you ever seen a shopping

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Speaker 1: mall without a nail salon. I feel like there's one

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Speaker 1: in every single corner I could pick in my neighborhood.

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Speaker 1: I could pick from like three to go to and

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Speaker 1: within walking distance. And so this, you know, lower prices,

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Speaker 1: more people being able to get manicures. Although you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of these pieces that we read kept connecting

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Speaker 1: a bad economy with little luxuries like manicures. But if

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Speaker 1: I'm not doing so well financially, I'm going to cut

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Speaker 1: back on manicures too, because I mean, if I wanted,

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Speaker 1: I could go buy a bottle of nail polish at

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Speaker 1: the drug store and paint my own freaking nails. If

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Speaker 1: I wanted to. But that's what some of these articles

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Speaker 1: we're talking about, that the nail polish and beauty industry

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Speaker 1: create eats trends to get people to go back to

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Speaker 1: the store and buy another bottle of nail polish by

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Speaker 1: that crackle polish that does weird things on your fingernails,

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Speaker 1: get jail nails. You know. There's even one nail polish

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Speaker 1: you talked about that has iron filaments so that when

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Speaker 1: you hold a magnet over your nails, it makes an

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Speaker 1: image like it pulls up the filaments to create some

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Speaker 1: kind of image. That just seems like it takes so

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Speaker 1: much time and then you have to carry out a

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Speaker 1: magnet everything to show people the images on your nail.

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Speaker 1: I think it just doesn't when it's wet. But um.

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Speaker 1: One one huge debate that came up about nail polish

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Speaker 1: that perhaps to me was the peak of absurdity was

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Speaker 1: in April of two thousand eleven, when the J Crew

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Speaker 1: creative director Jen Alliance was featured in one of the

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Speaker 1: j cru catalogs painting her young son's toenails pink, and

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Speaker 1: there was a caption with it it says, Lucky for me,

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Speaker 1: I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is

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Speaker 1: pink toenail painting is so much more fun in neon

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Speaker 1: and ins entity ensued. Firestorms freaked out, saying, you're painting.

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Speaker 1: First of all, you're painting and boys tonails, and that

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Speaker 1: is an activity reserve for girls. Also, you're painting it pink.

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Speaker 1: You are screwing up this child's personal gender schema. Jenna Lions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she is clearly ruining her son's mental state for the

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Speaker 1: rest of his life, because obviously he will remember this

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Speaker 1: forever and it will stick with him and other boys

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Speaker 1: will beat him up and this will be the worst

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Speaker 1: thing that has ever happened to him. It was really

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Speaker 1: portrayed that way. Yeah. Aaron Brown for the Culture and

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Speaker 1: Media Institute said that the magazine spread features blatant propaganda

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Speaker 1: celebrating transgender children. Oh yeah, and it doesn't stop there.

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Speaker 1: Psychiatrist Keith Ablow wrote for Fox News dot Com. This

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Speaker 1: is a dramatic example of the way that our culture

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Speaker 1: is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity,

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Speaker 1: homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such psychological

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Speaker 1: sterilization is not known. And yet again, all of that

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Speaker 1: meaning imbued into one very tiny, tiny bottle of nail polish. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's funny to read the comments on on the

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Speaker 1: post about this whole blow up, because a lot of

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Speaker 1: people rushed to the defense of gen Allians, basically saying, like,

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Speaker 1: what doesn't matter. First of all, colors, the colors blue

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Speaker 1: and paint corresponding with boys and girls. As we've discussed before,

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Speaker 1: it's a total arbitrary social construct. And why shouldn't a

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Speaker 1: five year old boy be able to like pink? Well,

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Speaker 1: and I wonder too if it was so much an

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Speaker 1: act of her painting the nails that really ruffled feathers,

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Speaker 1: or if it was pink, like if it had been

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Speaker 1: say black or navy blue, or you know, some what

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Speaker 1: was it Marco Bernardini's evolution man nail varnish made for men,

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Speaker 1: if it would have somehow been better. So, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think the combination of a girl all are with a

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Speaker 1: girl activity just freaked everybody out. And they're like, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, this five year old doesn't have a choice.

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Speaker 1: You're just forcing him to be this way. Yeah, just

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Speaker 1: delt And and psychologist Susan Bartel did defend the behavior.

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Speaker 1: She said, our kids gender is going to emerge naturally

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Speaker 1: as part of who they are and has nothing to

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00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: do with whether we paint or sorry, whether we put

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00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: paint nail polish on them. So, to circle back to

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00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:27,919
Speaker 1: our original question of why do we paint our nails?

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00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: The answers that we have come up with are what

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00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: we've got. History, we have, the economy, we have apparently

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00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 1: our um, gender concepts, um, we have what else? Luxury flappers? Yeah,

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00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: just wanting to grooming, auto paint grooming. They've they've painted

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00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:54,919
Speaker 1: nail polish and manicures as a way to uh, you know,

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00:25:54,960 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 1: make yourself look better, appear healthy, fashion, celebrity were ship.

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00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: So is the least discinct answer possible? I really the

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00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: last time I got my nails painted, I just did

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00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: it because my best friend said, paint your nails from

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00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: my wedding. Yeah. I keep looking at my nails thinking

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00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: I want to go get them done, but I just

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00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: don't want to spend the money get that menstrual blood color. Okay,

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00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: all right, that's all we have to say about nail polish,

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00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: And who knew that there would be so much? I know?

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00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: So do you paint your nails? Do you paint them

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00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: a specific color for specific reason? Guys out there. Do

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00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: you paint your nails? Do you get manicures? Do you

447
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: believe that as the economy plummets, more people want to

448
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: get their nails painted. Do you think it's a small

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00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 1: luxury or do you just cut back on that tube?

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00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 1: Let us know, Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is

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00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: our email address, and I have a letter here from

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00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: Susan and she's writing in response to our episode on

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00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: potty politics. She writes, in my workplace, the first two

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00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 1: stalls in every woman's restroom contain female urinals. They look

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00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: like a typical male urinal, except there is a lip

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00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: jetting out. My female coworkers and I often speculated about

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00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: how to use them, as we had never seen anyone

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00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: in them, and as they're only six dollars per ussroom

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00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: to begin with, it is cut down significantly on the

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00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: stalls available. Until one day I happened to be in

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00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: the rush room with a colleague from another country. She

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00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 1: went right on in and used the urnal, and I

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00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: was fascinated enough to ask how. She laughed and said,

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00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: it's much more sanitary because you don't have to sit

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00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,199
Speaker 1: down and explain that. You just stand up over the

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00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 1: long porcelain lip and go. I still never tried it,

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00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: but I understand now how I could be both sanitary

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00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: and likely more space efficient. Thank you, Susan. And here's

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00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 1: another email about our potty politics episode from Victoria. She said,

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00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 1: who knew that the current stall design hasn't been changed

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00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: since the mid eighteen hundreds. My uncle sells plumbing supplies,

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00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 1: and one of his favorite stories to tell is about

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00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,919
Speaker 1: the automatic flush toilets. Apparently they were first initially tested

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00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: in an airport and whom, and we're constantly complaining that

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00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: they did not work, flushing way too early. The designers,

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00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: all men, kept making adjustments and retesting to no avail. Finally,

477
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: one man was talking to his wife about it, and

478
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 1: she of course knew the problem right away once she

479
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: explained that many women do not actually sit on the toilet,

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00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: but prefer to squat, particularly in public airport restrooms. They

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00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,120
Speaker 1: were able to make the adjustments to the sensors, allowing

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00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: the automatic flush toilet to take over airports everywhere. Granted

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00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: there are still a few that flushed way too early.

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00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: I'm happy to say I didn't encounter any on my

485
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:35,199
Speaker 1: last trip across the country. I have totally encountered the free, flushed, terrified.

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00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: It's like a reverse of the day, alright. And on

487
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: that note, moms Stuff at Discovery dot com is where

488
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:47,360
Speaker 1: you can send your letters. You can also post pictures

489
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: of amazing manicures if you would like to do that

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00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: crazy nail polished on our Facebook page. Yes, and if

491
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: you wear bugles on your fingers, I'd like to see

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00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: that too. And you can also follow us on Twitter

493
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast. And there is also a ton

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00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 1: of information on nail upkeep, manicures and handheld let's just

495
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: call it that. Over at how Stuff works dot com.

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00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

497
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we

498
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The

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00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: house Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it

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00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: today on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two

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00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you