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Nail Art, a Growing Fad for Ladies, & Gents?
London-based Nigerian nail artist and Instagram blogger, Babez recently published a collection of some of the latest nail trends for 2015 and beyond. Her nail art collection range from the dollar sign, naira sign, fourth of July sign, ankaranails, pale and bright colors and various other beautiful designs which portray a growing culture and popular part of female fashion.
Interestingly, history has it that nail manicure and pedicure evolved from being an exclusive male fad to an almost entirely female trend. Today, sighting a male with bright nail painting is a rare happenstance and raises mixed emotions because men seem to have been left out of that pursuit. Little do people realize that nail treatment is a unisex culture. Rock musicians are known to wear nail polish ranging from black, gun metal, silver, olive green or brown colors. The exact population of males who presently indulge in this are unknown because most men prefer to wear clear polish on their nails. Nail polish protects nails from breakage and helps to present a polished personality.
According to the Independent Florida Alligator Newspaper (former University of Florida Student Newspaper) and Wikipedia, the history of nail painting dates back thousands of years to 3200 B.C. when Babylonian males of all classes wore nail polish. The color of the nail worn by males signified class, with black worn by the higher classes and green worn by the lower classes.
Much later in 3000 B.C., the Chinese were also known to have worn nail colors as class distinction. It was also around this time that Egyptian women started staining their nails. However, unlike the Chinese and Babylonians, the Egyptians allowed people of all classes to decorate their nails but the lower classes wore pale colors while the upper classes wore bright colors such as red.
Between 1800 to date, nail paints evolved from tinting with oil, to enamel, and finally to the modern day nail art with new polish textures, sheen and embellishments for intricate designs. The gel polish with its ability to keep the nail polish intact for upwards of three weeks is also trending.
What's in a nail color you may ask? We believe that it enables people to express their personality in this modern day and is no longer just for class distinction.
Babez is at https://instagram.com/_babezz/ and can be reached by email at babeznails@gmail.com for more on nail art.