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What’s
in a name? When it comes to nail polish, a catchy name
can seal the deal for a woman searching for “her”
color.
Flip
the bottle to read the label and a quirky or funny name
instantly sets a shade apart in a sea of reds, pinks and
nudes — adding another coat of fun to a manicure.
Some
are wacky (Deborah Lippmann’s Boom Boom Pow, Butter
London’s Bumster or OPI’s Guy Meets Gal-Veston), and
some are downright racy (Butter London’s Come to Bed
Red and Essie’s My Place or Yours).
“We’re
living in such a bespoke culture, everyone wants
something that’s speaking to them,” says Eva Chen,
health and beauty director at Teen Vogue.
When
polishes that look alike speak, they may say something
completely different. A shopper can find identical
shades of soft pink, one bearing a girly-girl name like
Essie’s Ballet Slippers and the other with the racier
I’m Not Innocent from Deborah Lippmann.
L.A.-based
nail polish company OPI is arguably the pioneer in
giving lacquers off-the-wall names. “We got into nail
color in 1989, when colors were ‘Red No. 19’ or
‘Mauve No. 7.’ It wasn’t sexy and it wasn’t
fun,” says Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, OPI executive vice
president and artistic director. “We made it into an
emotional experience and named the colors after
destinations.”
Weiss-Fischmann
and her creative team take inspirational trips to get
ideas for each collection. The name that ends up on the
bottom of each bottle is generally a riff on something
like a landmark or food they experienced while
traveling. They regroup back at OPI’s North Hollywood,
Calif., headquarters, where about six people sit in a
closed door meeting. Attendees bring food and other
items of inspiration based on the collection’s
destination or theme. Naming a collection of 12 shades
takes six to eight hours. The results for this fall’s
Touring America collection? Monikers including French
Quarter for Your Thoughts and Are We There Yet.
Seattle-based
nail polish firm Butter London turns to British slang
when coming up with color names. The company’s
creative director, Nonie Creme, a British transplant,
taps into tongue-in-cheek phrases that link back somehow
to the shade. For instance, “Toff,” a rose-brown
that Creme calls very “posh,” is British slang for a
rich boy. “Jaffa,” a punchy orange hue, is the name
of a seedless orange and U.K. slang for an infertile
male.
The
company’s current bestseller, “No More Waity
Katie,” is a cool, sparkly, purple hue that uses a
former cheeky nickname for Catherine, Duchess of
Cambridge, to commemorate her wedding to Britain’s
Prince William this year. Butter London takes labeling a
step further by providing a nail polish name dictionary
to help shoppers understand the meaning behind each
funny phrase.
Here
are some of our favorite nail polish names and a few
recent shades from fall collections that are sure to be
more memorable than Red No. 2 or Pink No. 4.
Sephora
Collection — Tomorrow, Detox! (teal with silver
glitter)
Butter
London — Wallis (a green-gold, named for Wallis
Simpson)
OPI
— Yucatan if You Want (a deep reddish-brown)
OPI
— Mauving to Manitoba (a gray-brown)
OPI
— Crown Me Already! (a bold, glittery silver)
Essie
— Fishnet Stockings (true red)
Essie
— No Prenup (an innocent baby pink)
Essie
— Trophy Wife (a sparkly teal)
Orly
— Two-Hour Lunch (hot pink)
Orly
— Take Him to the Cleaners (shimmery brown-black)
Deborah
Lippmann — Call Me Irresponsible (creamy violet)
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