Michelle Obama's Gray Nail Polish Sparks Trend. Salons Stock Up for Storm of Requests
She's done it again. With unlikely nail color and a few genuflections, the First Lady has catapulted a new beauty trend.
On Tuesday during her impassioned speech at the Democratic National Convention, the First Lady's blue-gray nails got more buzz than her Tracy Reese dress. Equal parts Katy Perry and high school goth, the color was an unusual choice for a political figure, no less a woman over 30. But Michelle Obama doesn't follow style rules, she reinvents them.
By the second day of the convention, beauty bloggers were obsessed with tracking down the brand of polish on her impeccable tips. Was it Chanel? O.P.I?
A Wall Street Journal reporter confirmed the answer. Michelle was wearing (drum roll, please) the Artistic Nail Design Soak Off Colour Gloss in "Vogue."
The bad news: it's a kind of polish mostly available in salons only. The good news: salons are stocking up on it.
By Thursday morning, Artistic Nail Designs U.S. headquarters were flooded with requests from manicurists interested in "stocking the Artistic Colour Gloss color that Michelle Obama was seen wearing."
A representative for the company told Yahoo! Shine they've "received a huge increase in emails and phone calls from people who are extremely interested in the color."
Because the $15.95 polish is a long-lasting, chip resistant gel that requires a UV light source for drying, it's mainly applied by the pros. While many women are converts, the chemical ingredients in the formula have been criticized for their potential to cause allergic reactions and nail damage.
On the plus side, your nail color lasts for 21 days without chipping. That's a big selling point when you and your hands are about to step up to a podium in front of millions.
The type of polish may have bee a no-brainer for Michelle, but how did she decide on the unconventional color? Maybe she looked to the runway. Gray polish has been a bonafide trend on the runway since 2011, when Rag and Bone's designers sent backstage tweets of their model's nails and Dior debuted Vernis Gris Montaigne, a darker gray polish.
Everyone from beauty bloggers to color-obsessed tweens have jumped on the trend. But after Tuesday, gray nails have gone mainstream.
