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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: I'm Lauren vogel Bomb, and this is a classic episode

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Speaker 1: from the Vault. In this one, we go into the

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Speaker 1: perhaps surprisingly long history of nail polish, from ancient marks

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Speaker 1: of class and military status to modern materials from the

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Speaker 1: automotive industry.

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Speaker 2: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogel Bomb. Here with a look

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Speaker 2: into the history of an everyday item, nail polish. It's

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Speaker 2: actually been an everyday item for folks going back at

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Speaker 2: least five thousand years. The very first people to apply

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Speaker 2: color to their nails were likely in India during the

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Speaker 2: Bronze Age, and they probably used hannah to do it.

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Speaker 2: The use of hannah as a dye for body art

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Speaker 2: was very common, so extending the designs and color onto

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Speaker 2: the nails was a natural next step. The Chinese took

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Speaker 2: the nail game up level sometime around three thousand BCE.

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Speaker 2: They created a sort of nail varnish using a mixture

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Speaker 2: of egg whites, beeswax, gelatine, amarabic which is a sap

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Speaker 2: from the acacia tree, and alum, a compound frequently used

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Speaker 2: in dyeing to help colors stick. These varnishes were then

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Speaker 2: colored with flower petals or gold or silver dust. They

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Speaker 2: further personalized the looks with artificial nails made of silver

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Speaker 2: and gold, covered with jewels or closwine as well. These

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Speaker 2: elaborately designed and colored nails were exclusively reserved for royal

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Speaker 2: classes only. Around the same time, the Babylonians were getting

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Speaker 2: into the nail game, but it was the warriors who

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Speaker 2: were wearing color. The men pigmented their nails with coal,

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Speaker 2: which is finely powdered sulfide before going into battle again.

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Speaker 2: Even among these soldiers, class mattered. Higher class warriors had

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Speaker 2: their nails colored with black coal, while lower class fighters

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Speaker 2: used green coal. Enna has also been found painted on

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Speaker 2: Egyptian mummies, including their nails. Nail colour signified class in

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Speaker 2: Egypt too. The redder ones nails in ancient Egypt, the

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Speaker 2: more power that person had. Queen Nefertiti, the stepmother of

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Speaker 2: King Tutan, common, wore dark red nails, a color rumored

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Speaker 2: to have blood in it. Cleopatra is said to have

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Speaker 2: painted her nails from the juice of the hennaplant, which

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Speaker 2: created a deep and rusty color. Women of lower rank

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Speaker 2: were only allowed to wear pastel colors colored nails were

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Speaker 2: popular in Europe by the Renaissance era, when trade with

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Speaker 2: countries in Asia opened up. Coloring and bejeweling nails hit

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Speaker 2: another high in eighteenth century French quartz, where outlandish fashion

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Speaker 2: trends were the rage. By the Victorian era, women were

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Speaker 2: creating color and shine with tinted oils. Women were also

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Speaker 2: using tinted powders and creams on their nails to give

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Speaker 2: them color and shine. That apply the mild abrasive and

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Speaker 2: buffet for a shiny look, but it took time to

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Speaker 2: apply the powdered cream, polish and buff each nail. In

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixteen, q Tex changed that when it introduced its

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Speaker 2: first clear nail lacquer. Painting a layer of shine on

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Speaker 2: fingernails became much easier than all that buffing. It wasn't

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Speaker 2: until the early twentieth century that polish as we know

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Speaker 2: it came into existence, though, and we have the automobile

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Speaker 2: industry to think. In the nineteen twenties, automotive paint was invented,

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Speaker 2: and not long after French manicurist Michelle Minard adapted the

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Speaker 2: formula to create opaque nail polish. Her employer, Charles Revson,

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Speaker 2: knew a good thing when he saw it, so he

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Speaker 2: and his brother Joseph launched a new company, Revlon, with

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Speaker 2: the first colored nail enamel appearing in nineteen thirty two.

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Speaker 2: Manicures were far from being the exclusive territory of the

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Speaker 2: upper classes at this point. A bottle of q Tex

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Speaker 2: nail polish cost thirty five cents in nineteen thirty four

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Speaker 2: and affordable luxury in a time of type purse strings.

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Speaker 2: When America entered World War II and women joined the

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Speaker 2: workforce in huge numbers, manicures changed accordingly. Long nails were

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Speaker 2: not going to last doing shift work at the factory.

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Speaker 2: Even the New York Times ran remedies for motor mechanic hands.

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Speaker 2: Rather than trying to keep up brightly painted nails, women

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Speaker 2: working manual jobs turned back to clear polish or even

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Speaker 2: buffing with cream polish. After Manard invented colored nail laquer,

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Speaker 2: women were having their nails coated from base to tip

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Speaker 2: with solid colors. But it didn't take long before the

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Speaker 2: French manicure became a mark of sophistication. Rather than using

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Speaker 2: two colors as we often do today, women would leave

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Speaker 2: the moon at the base of the nail and the

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Speaker 2: tip completely and very carefully unpainted. Black nail varnish was

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Speaker 2: introduced in the nineteen thirties, though there's no evidence of

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Speaker 2: any soldiers getting their nails done a lah the Babylonians.

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Speaker 2: At the same time in England, women were having landscapes

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Speaker 2: painted onto their nails, a level of detail not attempted

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Speaker 2: since the Chinese Closbonne nails of nearly five thousand years before.

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Speaker 2: You can now find nail polish nearly everywhere, in nearly

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Speaker 2: every color, and for as little as a few dollars

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Speaker 2: a bottle, But the echoes of the upper class Chinese, Babylonian,

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Speaker 2: Egyptian and French still linger in products like Acid Tour's

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Speaker 2: Black Diamond Polish. It contains two hundred and sixty seven

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Speaker 2: carrots of black diamonds and costs a cool two hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty thousand dollars a bottle.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article The Colorful History

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Speaker 1: of nail polish on houstuffworks dot com, written by Christie

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Speaker 1: Hall Geisler. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how stuffworks dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang.

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Speaker 1: Four more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.