The History of Nail Art

So its safe to say that I am addicted to nail polish. I am obsessing over chipped nails all the time, I am always finding new colors I need to add to my collection, its bad but I have accepted it! The other day I signed up for Refinery 29's daily email list for a contest so I started getting their daily emails. The other day I opened it up and the main article was "The History of Nail Art" of course I read and was completely fascinated. Did you know that painting your nails (or some form of it) dates back 7000 years?  Here are some fun facts from the history of nail art!

So nail art dates back to 5000 B.C. to Indian women who would die the tips of their fingers with henna which is still done today but in a different way.

Next is 3000 B.C. when the Chinese came up a rough form of nail polish made out of gelatin, gum paste, beeswax and vegetable dyes. They would add flowers in for color and this process would sometimes take up to 24 hours to set up. Imagine having to wait that long for your nails to dry, I get frustrated when it takes longer than 30 minutes!

During the middle ages, manicures weren't that common (I would have died living then!) but during the Renaissance it picked back up and women played around with pattern and many decorated their nails with pictures of eagles. Interesting! 

1932 was the year Revlon came out with bottled nail polish. Even during the depression, painting your nails was still popular because of the easy accessibility and affordability of Revlon polish. 

In the 70s, the french manicure was "invented" and became every girls classic staple of manicure. Any time you just want a basic manicure, girls go with french! 

Now we have stick on nails, nail stickers and the gel manicure. Its amazing to see where nail art started and where it is today. I can't wait to see what is in the future for nail art!