Ancient History of Nails

    For Thousands of years, a wide range of natural and manufactured products has been used by different cultures and classes to enhance and sustain the beauty of hands and feet.  For example: In some culturesm attractive hands and nails were simply seen as a part of good hygiene.In other cultures, well-manicured hands were set apart from the upper class and high society, or as a sex symbol.  Of course the tools of the trade have changed over and over again over time including to the present day.
    Much like estetics industry, the practice of nail art and design has been around for centuries.  THe chinese wore nail art as early as 3,000 B.C., and so did the ancient Egyptions since around 3,500 B.C.  The Chinese found ways to use gum arabic, egg whites, gelatin, and beeswax to create nail varnishes and lacquers. Egyptians used henna to stain their nails. 
    Egyptians used red to show the highest social class. It is said that Cleopatra's nails were painted a deep red, Queen Nefertiti sported a flashier rudy shade of red.  If a commener painted their nails a royal color it was punishable by death. 

Joesph Simon Beau Review Article In Nail Pro's Newsletter For Subscribers ONLY

    Today's Nail Pro Newsletter, there's an article titled "Nail Clinic: Beau's Lines" written by an author unknown. I am going to do a series of feeds over this article.  I am going to be breaking it down into mini books.  This installment of the blog will be the introduction.  The blog starts in "1846 when French physician Joseph Honoré Simon Beau first described horizontal grooves on the nail, or transverse ridges. Beau was best known for his research on the heart and lungs, but the nail community remembers him for noticing this condition. Beau’s lines, as they have come to be known, occur when the nail matrix is injured and the growth of the nail is slowed. This eventually causes grooves in the surface of the nail plate. Affecting finger- and toenails, this condition is most commonly caused by an injury such as slamming a finger in the door or dropping a heavy object on a toe. Transverse ridges can also be a sign of a systemic illness—an illness that affects the entire body rather than just one organ—or of a congenital disease, which means it was acquired during the body’s development in the uterus.
Whatever the reason for the slowing or halting of nail growth, it will result in transverse ridges on the nails, which look like pale bands lying horizontally across the nail plate. They first appear at the moon (lunula) and then progress with the growth of the nail. In cases where the ridges are not caused by a systemic illness or congenital disease, Beau’s lines will grow out with the nail and disappear. Fingernails take approximately nine months—about one millimeter per week—to grow out completely, with the middle fingernail growing most rapidly, and toenails take approximately 18 months to grow out. With this in mind, by measuring the distance from the transverse groove to the cuticle, you can sometimes estimate the date of the injury or illness."
   The next installment book 2 will be the causes of this illness.  It's rather interesting so be looking forward to telling you about it!

History of nail polish

The Incas decorated their fingernails with pictures of eagles, but it is unclear how the practice of colouring nails progressed following these beginnings. Portraits from the 17th and 18th centuries include shiny nails.  By the turn of the 19th century, nails were tinted with scented red oils, and polished or buffed with a chamois cloth, rather than simply polished.  English and US 19th century cookbooks had directions for making nail paints (polishes). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, people pursued a polished rather than painted look by massaging tinted powders and creams into their nails, then buffing them shiny. One such polishing product sold around this time was Graf's Hyglo nail polish paste. Some people during this period painted their nails with clear, glossy varnish applied with a camel-hair brush. After the creation automobile paint Cutex produced the first nail modern nail polishes in 1917 with the introduction of colored nail glosses.  Once nail polish was refined, it was often used in the place of gloves to cover up the grime underneath the nails.  Colored nail polish was also considered at one time self-mutilation by psychiatrists and unhealthy. Despite this, the first lady to wear solid colors was Eleanor Rosevelt.