Nail polish is a lacquer that can be applied to fingernails or toenails. Today women appreciate the freedom of expression of being able to choose every possible color available in nail polish, as well as glitter and a metallic sheen.  This was not always the case! 

In ancient times men and women were identified and even separated by the color of their nails.  Workers had rough hands.  Nail polish was not only impractical for them, but also cost-prohibitive.  Nail polish was for the aristocratic social stature. Painting fingernails and toenails is an ancient art used by the Japanese and Italians as early as 300 B.C.  The Chinese used a variety of techniques, one being a combination of mashed rose, orchid and impatiens petals with alum; another used egg whites with gelatin, beeswax and gum arabic. Around 600 BC in the Chou dynasty, royalty painted their nails with gold and silver. Black and red were the colors of nail polish used by royalty in 15th century Ming dynasty. 

The Inca decorated their fingernails by painting on eagles.  The henna plant was used by Egyptians for a reddish-brown dye.  Egyptian royalty, as Queen Nefertiti and Cleopatra, used bright reds.  Other women could only wear the paler shades of nail polish, so as not to compete with royalty. The 19th century introduced buffing nails for a more polished appearance, hence ‘nail polish’.  This was affected by massaging tinted powders and creams into nails and then buffing them. The introduction of automobile paint around 1920 contributed to the inspiration of colored nail enamels.