Onychochromotaxonomy
a primer :) for nail-polish classification, because these days being Furiously "Frivolous" feels fit
Colour is one of my raisons d'être (reasons for being) — and also, technically, my main means to make a living (as well as modus vivendi)1, whether the colour is concrete, literal, figurative, coherent (such as a laser), on clothes, eyelids, or nails.
Well, in the case of the latter, colour was a big deal for me for a couple of spells.
Back in the day, in my mid-teens, I saw my first graphic T-shirts. (Awww.) Or, rather, the first T-shirts with funny slogans, such as: "If you can’t be elegant, at least be extravagant.” See, my native Romania sorely lacked this type of souvenirs; the sight of the T-shirt in question occurred during a short trip to Greece — a story on its own, perhaps for another time.
I interpreted that slogan as permission to embody my extravagance-craving self. (Although I eventually bought the T-shirt that said: “Every day of my life I’m forced to add another name to the list of people who piss me off.”) The most intense manifestation: neon-green and neon-orange nail polishes, newly acquired from my local photocopier (!) store. I used a pencil to draw lines on my nails, then filled the designs with these two electrifying finds.
Complete framing: this was right before the start of grade 11. Romania was still less than a decade removed from its authoritarian era, and not having to wear a school uniform anymore was a remarkable concession — one of the few. A somewhat-official dress-code was still in effect. By the end of high-school perhaps a handful of students had shown up in class exhibiting one minor cosmetic change such as dyed hair or lipstick. Neon nail-polish was wilddd! but I could do it because it was summer.
When, days after returning from my trip, I ended up in the hospital with appendicitis, my surgeon made sure to comment on my nails. Oh, well, I was going to stop painting them after school started anyway.
I picked the habit back up later, with the kind of enthusiasm that results in a collection — of nail-polishes in this case. After all, my wardrobe was all over the light spectrum. (At the time, my autistic camouflage consisted primarily in standing out deliberately.)
So, when an online archaeology course that I was taking presented me with a classification exercise…it was only natural for me to do what’s described in this…essay? circa 2013.
The assignment:
Classify yourself!
Rewatch the Unit 4 video […].
1. Take your backpack, purse, the contents of a desk drawer, or any other personal assemblage.
2. Dump it all out on a table or other flat surface (floor, countertop) and think about possible ways to ‘organize’ this material into types.
3. Arrange the objects in four different ways, employing four different criteria. If possible, take pictures of each grouping.
4. Describe each criterion you selected and explain why you chose it. Which do you think is most effective and why? What do you think you learned about yourself from this exercise? Your answer should be approximately 400-750 words (with 750 the maximum allowed).
5. Upload your picture(s) of each grouping with your assignment.
This exercise should take no more than one hour.
This student’s barely contained, unclassifiable joy, submitted for the kind review of student-peers (warning: sincerely verbose!):
I chose option #1... sigh, although it is difficult to share this with all its implications. Anonymity certainly helps.
This is a non-intentional, ten-year accumulation of nail-colouring wealth. The rate of addition of new elements definitely picks up every time I discover a new source, but I have strong faith that I have exhausted all <$5, maximum $10-if-it’s-really-really-pretty/item sources. :)
Not all of the “family members” may be present in all pictures, but the first picture is of the collection as it sits in the top drawer of my dresser.
My usual criterion, for fashionable assortment purposes, is (A) by colour (or, more accurately, by range of predominant wavelengths absorbed).
This attempts to distribute the elements in a band pass manner (i.e. “whites”, “reds”, “greens”, “blues”). There are a few blue-ish greens (or green-ish blues) — the “teals”, a few dark enough to be “blacks”, some “tan-oranges”, so the borders between categories can be quite unclear at times.
This is a physical criterion. Its use also reveals, I believe, my fondness of green. I have been in pursuit of the “perfect green”. This would be a viridian-emerald green.
The second criterion employed for this exercise is (B) by manufacturer/brand.
Numerous opinions (i.e., blogs by nail-polish afficionados) tend to ascribe a certain importance to this criterion and a vague “hierarchy” of brands may have been developed. According to my (far from exhaustive) readings on the matter, my collection consists mainly of “drugstore brands”. These are relatively inexpensive brands; the average price for these polishes is around $3-4/bottle. I have learned earlier this year that there are certain “designer/underground” brands that can go as pricey as $50-$100/bottle and that a “home-made” mixture of polishes is referred to as a “Frankenstein” or, in short, a “franken” polish.
I will use the initial letter and, where applicable, the second letter of the brand name to label the different categories in the corresponding photograph. The differences among manufacturers tend to lie in the realms of smooth applicability of the nail-polish (i.e. with minimal or no “streaking”), pigment intensity and tendency to chip (measured in time between application and chipping).
Unfortunately, although I can provide a list of references, I am not entirely confident in the reproducibility of individual results (i.e. I’m pretty happy with all of them except the yellows, I gather that’s a funky pigment).
The third criterion is also a physical one: (C) shine/glitteriness (yes, I had to make up this word). I have polishes ranging from matte and shiny (light-reflecting) to small-glitter and large-glitter.
The fourth criterion attempts to be a (D) “functional” one. There are classic polishes designed to cover the entire nail in a homogeneous fashion, polishes that crackle upon drying, holographic or mirror-effect (distinct effects), and nail-art/design polishes — these ones have an elongated, thin brush that aids in shape-drawing on the nail. A separate “specialty” class (within my collection) are the dual polishes (one end holds a classic polish, the other one a sheer, flake glitter-filled polish)2.
Another criterion could have been (had I kept better track of their origin) the time of purchase. There are colours that seem to be “trendier” in some years than they are in others. My oldest one is a holographic polish that came as a gift with a magazine in 2003.
Again, my favourite criterion is the first one. I do tend to keep them grouped by colour (as much as possible), while storing the nail-art ones in a separate transparent box (a partial fourth criterion). The other two criteria are not relevant for my day-to-day use of nail-colouring techniques , because I have not noticed significant differences among brands and I do not mind any amount of glitter. Available time limits, though, my ability to draw shapes using the nail-art polishes.
I hope that you, the reader, will find this exercise entertaining to some extent. Should you wish to enlarge the images, I believe they can be downloaded — I tried to give an “overall” feel to this exercise and not make you scroll worth of five large images. I have already learned something — that I have exceeded the “reasonable limit” for number of nail polish bottles owned! I must admit I was fearing this outcome. :) Fortunately, I have recently discovered “traditional” painting and I much enjoy a larger space (larger than a nail) for my colour-mixing tendencies.3
peer 1 → That was a great effort! Of course, you have answered all the questions but what really surprised me is the criteria you have used to organise these items. You have a lot of imagination and that made the reading of your excercise very interesting for me! Well done, i see that you have really enjoyed this excercise. The grade is 3 from me!!
peer 2 → You obviously know your material. Nice visuals.
peer 3 → You did a wonderful job and it was amusing and interesting.
peer 4 → Wow, you sure do have a lot of polish! Great job on criteria for classification and artistic set up of photos. Fulfilled the assignment beautifully.
Epilogue: After my foray into the world of nail-polish enthusiasts, my own enthusiasm waned. I keep my nails short and I don’t remember the last time I painted them4.
I seem to have gotten aboard a pun-roll of sorts… Hm.
2026 note: That might be a topper.
Ah. My words expand on the page just like nail-polish collections in the drawer.
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe in “frivolity” in an existential sense. Follow the joy. Yeah.