The truth about red nails...

There really is nothing new under the sun. Every time we hit upon a grand and novel idea and proceed to carry it out, we are carrying on a grand and ancient tradition. All that changes is the technology. Digital Imaging? There are prehistoric paintings of the walls of caves in Altmira. Long-distance phone calls? Our forbears lit fires that signalled to their neighbours, until the countryside was ablaze with twinkling conflagrations. This technology only worked at night, and it cannot be a coincidence that evening calls are still cheaper. Everyone knows that the Romans beat us to it with the bath, but I’ll bet that even they were channelling – ha!- more ancient technology. No, there really is nothing new out there, least of all cosmetics. We’ve long known that the Egyptians made perfume, and eye shadow, and mascara. They waxed and henna-ed their hair, and rubbed lanolin into their skins. When it comes to nail polish, we’ve got to hand it to the Chinese, who were using gold and silver pigments c. 3000 BC. Red and black replaced these colours, the polishes being made of beeswax, gelatine, vegetable dyes, gum Arabic, and egg whites – gosh! Of course, the Egyptians were not to be left out. The ordinary folk wore pale colours while royalty wore red, a pointer to the most popular colour of today. Well, the colour has taken a tumble in favour of the more sophisticated offerings from trendy nail bars, but I wiggle my fingers for Chinese cosmeticians and Egyptian royalty. To celebrate tradition, witness my “handie”….