Strange Nail Polish Advertisements
Thursday, May 29th, 2008Some nail polish brands like OPI have consistently excellent marketing and advertisements. OPI ads always have one classy very beautiful model with very well manicured visible nails – simple and chic.
Then… some… brands… well I just don’t know.
Polish Addict’s Exhibit 1: CND Plexi Pop Collection.
I don’t get this advertisement. Actually, I don’t get this entire collection. What exactly is a plexi? Do they mean plexi as in ‘plexi glass’? Is it called plexi pop because it’s like colored glass? If that’s the concept… then what’s up with the Jetsons styled model? Does plexi glass relate in some way to bad futuristic make up and hair? This promotional image doesn’t make me want to buy nail polish. It makes me bitter that it’s 2008 and we still don’t have flying cars.
Exhibit 2: Orly Love Collection

Plexi pop is a failed marketing concept but it was a good try. The ad for the Orly Love Collection, on the other hand, is an example of how some people are just plain bad at their jobs. I’m not a make-up girl, so I’m not really qualified to pass judgment, but really, this model looks hideous. Did it really not occur to anyone at any step in the creation of this abomination that this make-up is ugly? I mean… first the make up artist, the photographer, the lighting person, the set designer, the person who edited the image… the execs who agreed that this image was THE ONE for this ad – is it really possible that, no one, n-o o-n-e along the way was like, “hey Bob, you know, maybe… maybe we shouldn’t use this ad. This girl… she doesn’t really look like she’s in love, unless being in love makes you look like you’re dying of hypothermia.” Take my criticism with a grain of salt because, like I said, make up isn’t my beat. I do know nails though, and I don’t like the nails in this ad either. They just look bad. The color looks fine but the shape and curvature of the nail bed is unattractive and weird. Get. A. Hand. Model. Orly, c’mon, you can do better.
And finally, Exhibit #3.

I lol every time I see the We Adorn You ad. I don’t want to give China Glaze a hard time because usually they have excellent promotional images. This ad is definitely an aberration, but wow, when advertising goes wrong, it really goes wrong. I get the concept here. “We Adorn You”, so we need an image of pampered, well-groomed women in China Glaze nail polish – ok, solid up to that point. The wrong turn occurred when China Glaze decided it would be a good idea to hire a porn industry hair and make-up artist for this shoot. I mean no offense to these three models, they’re beautiful, but this ad looks like it could be interchangeable with a softcore porn video cover or something else equally cheesy. I actually have a sneaking suspicion that China Glaze might have recycled a harlequin romance novel cover for use in this ad. The story was about 3 concubines that ran away together from an evil King’s harem. This is the cropped version of the image. The full image includes Fabio, ripped shirt, hair blowing in the wind.










These colors belong to collections (

I have been endlessly searching for a perfect wearable off-white. Most are unacceptable to me because the colors are either too streaky, too white, or too off-white leaning towards pink. After a lot of searching and a lot of duds, I finally found the perfect off-white: OPI Time-Less is More from the Beyond Chic, 2008’s Soft Shades Collection. I was pretty excited about Beyond Chic before it came out, even though no one else seemed to be into the collection. In an effort to be less extravagant in my polish purchases, I successfully talked myself out of getting the whole collection. I own a lot of soft pinks and one of the lovely girls on MUA RAOK’d me a white with gold shimmer, thereby negating my need for the 2 white with gold shimmer polishes from Chic Shades. But, in a moment of weakness, I finally gave in for Time-less is More. I’m really glad I did. My only complaint is that it took 3 to 4 coats to achieve bottle color, but that’s to be expected with colors like this. I didn’t have much streakiness trouble with Barielle Camo as a base. Scrangie has pictures of the whole collection up on her blog (as usual),
As always, I think this depends on what kind of job you have and how flexible towards fashion your job happens to be. Another consideration is whether a color is socially acceptable. I suppose, when it comes to professional-looking nail polish, there are two schools of thought. The first, I call the Essie school. The Essie school of thought holds that only nude, natural, neutral, or light pink is appropriate for work. The other, Vampy School holds that darks are also fine for work as long as the colors are not overly outrageous (dark browns, reds, plums would be ok whereas bright purple or black would not be) and the mani is clean and professional looking. For the most part, I belong to the Vampy school. Even so, I think grey is a new enough color trend that it might still strike some people as being bizarre. I’ve heard a lot of people compare it to having corpse-like nails, etc. I probably wouldn’t wear any of the dark greys to work. However, light greys like OPI Moon Over Mumbai (pictured to the left) or the similar Essie Body Language are very professional and sleek looking. Both should be acceptable for most work environments.


Product #2 Barielle Nail Camouflage










