Recently I had cause to stop and review some fundamentals. Well one, at any rate, that I had always assumed to be beyond question: that when it comes to nail polish, it has to be red.
My first revelation occurred a few weeks ago in Cannes as a friend and I went shopping. She had forgotten her nail polish and eschewed my much-loved Barcelona Red from Chanel for having "too much of an orange tone". So what colour did she pick out from the pharmacy shelves? None other than orange - vivid orange.
Strangely, once she'd painted her toenails, it worked. Admittedly she was tanned and we were in Mediterranean sunlight, which makes everything but porcelain skin look desirable, but the colour looked good.
I consoled myself over this painting- outside-the-red-box-shocker with the thought that at least we were just talking toes. They're so far down that you don't really see them clearly and distance may make the eyes grow fonder. Then a few weeks later: Bham! She'd put the orange on her fingernails and that worked, too.
Then I started looking around. Despite a good representation in the pages of glossy magazines, orange is not in general digit view. In fact, no one else seems to have any kind of colour on their fingernails. Even I couldn't remember the last time I put a lick of varnish on mine - apart from a rare bored moment during a recent weekend when I'd Barcelona Red-ed everything in sight. That was enough to remind me why I hadn't done it for so long: it's so high maintenance - one chip and you have to start all over again.
So for most ladies the reality is that clear, nude or almost non-existent pink shades are what they want on their hands. O.P.I.'s Coney Island Cotton Candy (officially part of the French Manicure range) is the one you'll often find squirreled away in handbags ready for emergency gloss applications.
Toes, of course, are different. Varnish there can last for a while, especially in the open-toed-shoe summer months. And in the warmer weather it seems we're all a little more likely to play with brightness. O.P.I. is so aware of this that it has launched a summer collection called Flip-flop Fabulous that includes coral, oranges and bright pink.
But not everyone's a fan of the zany. Carolyn Cianciotto, the cult New York manicurist who recently launched her own line of nail polishes, Carolyn New York, says tastes vary according to country: "Europe is way ahead of us in reds and oranges, and now the US is just starting to wear them." But for Cianciotto, the zany colours are more "like kiddy colours, not for adults".
Ros Lewis, founder of the UK's Cuticles, a mobile network of beauty therapists, disagrees. She believes the main concern is simply whether shades suit your complexion. "Turquoise in particular is difficult to wear - it's very contrasting, so it's personal whether you wear it or not." Her only don't is not to wear bright colours "if you're trying to blend into the crowd".
As for me, I've decided it's still all about nude or red. I did try a few brights - on both toes and fingers. I even tried a pretty-but-bold candy pink called Deauville (Chanel again). And though I might, in time, be able to adjust my taste to all the zaniness, my problem is in the application: I just don't find the bold colours easy to paint on. In fact, they end up looking blotchy, streaky and even a bit messy. Maybe it's something in my technique, but this is one trend that doesn't colour me happy.
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