No More Waity, Katie

Charming. Prince Charming. Finally a nail polish marketed to the enormous audience who have already knit their own royal wedding, hooked up their Kate and William commemorative refrigerator, and are just twitching to spend their extra crumpet money. Of course, the polish will not be sold in the U.K., and it won't be shipped out until May, post-wedding frenzy, so…good luck with that.


Now, I like a good bit of rhyming doggerel as much as the next McGonagall fan, but "No More Waity, Katie"? Really? First of all, I'm pretty sure she goes by "Kate." And, call me crazy, but I can't seem to find "waity" anywhere in my copy of the O.E.D. You will note, however, that the actual word "wait" rhymes with her actual name, "Kate." So apparently someone just decided to add extra syllables and take up more space on the bottle to...make both parts worse? Yes, I know that "Waity Katie" is one of Kate Middleton's tabloid nicknames. So I could potentially (albeit with serious questions about how wise it is to emulate such fine literary sources as the Sun) let "No More Waity Katie" slide. That said, grammatically-challenged nail polish namer, consider the role of a comma. "Waity Katie," qua nickname, makes a certain amount of tenuous grammatical sense, in that the -y is a slapdash adjective-maker, thus she is a Katie with a proclivity towards waiting. "No More Waity, Katie," however, means that you are addressing the future Queen of England in baby talk. I hope you have an immunity to Corgi bites.

Substantively, of course, it is always great to have more cultural reinforcement that a woman's role is to exert feminine wiles and wait passively for a man to choose her. Thanks, Jerky Turkey.

Bitches Brew

SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling nail polish bottle.


Thunder. Enter the three Bitches.

First Bitch
Thrice I've backstabbed my best friend.
Second Bitch
Thrice and once today I've whined.
Third Bitch
I am SO bored--'Tis time, 'tis time.
First Bitch
Round about the bottle go;
Add like, whatever, I don't know.
Eye of newt; some blood of ducks;
That should be good for sixteen bucks.
Looks kind of dirty, but don't panic;
Charge extra--call the brand organic.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Second Bitch
The bottle's full of our creation,
No more room for punctuation;
Forget the tired, trite, possessive,
"Bitches Brew"'s much more expressive.
We brew a lot besides just potions:
Moisturizers, perfumes, lotions.
You know it takes more than a wand
To get Three's tacky cauldron-blonde.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Third Bitch
So anyway, that lame Macbeth,
Let's bring him to an early death.
He's so not hunky, and that wife!
Your hands are clean--please get a life!
After we've got him in our thrall
We'll head out to the nearest mall.
My jeans have been untimely ripp'd,
And for Bitch One, I've got a reason:
Your black cat is SO last season.
Bitch Two, you'll never catch a thane
Til Birnam wood reach Dunsinane.

Cool As

Do you American folks ever wonder if it is just our overheated advertising industry that is responsible for nail polish monstrosities? Finally, I have evidence of a foreign crime worth extraditing (graciously submitted by fabulous Aussie reader Jade).


(photo by Jade)

Cool As? Cool As What? I don't know if I can handle the suspense! A refreshing mountain spring? The von Trapp child Maria forgot about and left in the Alps? That gum I keep seeing commercials for where everything suddenly becomes an ice cavern and for some reason you can then talk to women with ease? Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a thermometer!*

What we really need here is some scientific rigor. (Or with this polish, rigour?)



Dear John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation: I am willing to devote my career to placing this nail polish at its appropriate point on the Coolness Scale. Send grant money and research assistants, stat.

*Not actually a doctor.

Princesses Rule!

I'm pretty sure that, by definition, they don't.

Give Me Moor!

Wow, really? Really? How did nobody's offensiveness radar go off when you named a nail polish after a race of people, colored it to approximate their skin tone, and then asked to possess them? Follow-up question: if you have a white nail polish, do you need to keep this one next to it at all times so that you don't wake up one day to find your white polish bottle lying mysteriously broken underneath a tiny little pillow? In this case, I think OPI named neither wisely nor too well.

Granted, it is conceivably possible that OPI was going with another definition of "moor" (although not likely, seeing as this comes from the "Espana" collection). If we are talking about land forms, though, a moor is about as unpleasant and useless as you can get. Does whoever named this really want a desolate, infertile, and somewhat soggy piece of English countryside? Nor does swapping from "Moor" to "moor" really improve the romantic connotations in either healthiness or happy endingness.

Let's just agree to cut our losses and stick with the verb, then, shall we? I'll moor you to whatever you want. Just promise to stay there.

Deer Valley Spice

Here is a list of things that should be named "Deer Valley Spice":

1) A scented candle used in a hunting lodge
2) The mildly scandalous gossip column on the back page of a Massachusetts preparatory school newspaper
3) The cologne dabbed behind the ear of an ever-so-smooth 46-year-old gentleman as he prepares to head out to the local bar with all the temptingly tipsy co-eds
4) An exotic blend of seven different kinds of pepper that you buy at Williams Sonoma because it's only $8.95 and you just know it will give your arugula salad that little extra something, but no matter how hard you strain your taste buds, it just tastes like regular pepper, and then you realize that you don't even like arugula
5) The racy series of novels that results when the Sweet Valley twins grow up to find that the Unicorn Club has developed into a prostitution ring...but can Elizabeth's journalistic skills save the day?


(suggested by Gillian)

This nail polish, however, is none of these things. Nor is it remotely near the color of a deer, a valley, or any spice found in nature. In fact, the only image that comes into my head when I try to associate this shade with deer-filled valleys is of a woman with avaricious pink claws stroking the pelt of Bambi's mother, trying to decide whether she will have it made into a coat or a stole. I guess this is, after all, somewhat fitting. When it comes to both Bambi and names like this, the real enemy is Man.

Dick Weed; Jizz

Whoa, now, let's just simmer down a moment, shall we? There's no need to get all hostile.


(suggested by Blanche and Trina)

I've seen a lot of nail polish that seems to be going through personal problems, including the insecure, the misogynistic, and the...vampiric, but none that is this out-of-the-blue insulting.

Also, "Dick Weed," really? When is the last time anybody used that one? You might as well bust out the big guns and start calling people "squares" and "dweebs." According to the only semi-scholarly article I can find, "dickweed" pretty much peaked as an insult in 1986, thanks to the immortal line "You killed Ted, you Medieval dickweed!" So let me take a page from the book of Bill S. Preston, Esq. and proclaim this name most heinous.

Incidentally, BleachBlack:

Before you named this little number "Jizz"...


(suggested by Hannah)

...you probably should have considered how wearers are going to have to respond when someone asks them "What's on your nails?"

Up's

Great, just what we all needed: dadaist nail polish. What is "up's" with this?


Actually, I'm kind of impressed. Who would have thought so much confusion could be packed into just three letters and one punctuation mark? In terms of nonsense per character this little number is compressed like [normals] Kim Kardashian's posterior in this dress [nerds] a ZIP file stored on the world's tiniest USB drive and thrown into Garbage Compactor 3263827 on the Death Star.

What exactly happened to cause this name? Was the author trying to go to the United Parcel Service's website to see when they would deliver her new keyboard without an erratically triggering caps lock and apostrophe key? Was she hoping to launch her career as a film critic by naming a nail polish after the first word of her thesis, titled "Up's Balloons: Intelligent Falling: a Metatextual Metaphorical Metaphysical Metallurgical Critique of Gravity"?

Whatever is going on here, this name is not exactly at the top's of my list. Not exactly one of Essie's high'slights.

Buy Me a Cameo

You know those days when you want to be obnoxiously demanding, but you ALSO really want your fashion to be at least ninety years out of date? Apparently Essie's got it covered! What's that you say? You also want to reinforce sexist stereotypes, like that the main goal in women's lives is to extract jewelry from men? No problem; this little number has it all.



In fact, I hear that so many women are clamoring for antique cliches on their nails that Essie is launching a whole line. This spring, check your local drugstore for sure-fire hits like Pull Over Your Ford Model T Right Now and Ask For Directions, Don't You Dare Take My Backstreet Boys Record Off the Victrola, No You Can't Go Out Fox Hunting With the Boys On Our Anniversary Weekend, and What Happens In Paris Only Stays In Paris If It Does Not Include the French Disease, Ben, Now Go Sleep On the Couch.

12 Inch Gang Bang

(Photo by Lacquer Laine)

Interestingly, Lifetime is using this color as an inspiration for their first-ever movie based on a nail polish name. Keep an eye on your TV Guide so you don't miss the debut of "Rape in Lilliput: What Happens When 12-Inch Pianists Go Bad."

Friar, Friar, Pants on Fire!

Blasphemy! Accusing a man of God of deception? I had no idea that OPI was so iconoclastic. Maybe this is the color that Richard Dawkins wears on dates?


I admit that I kind of like the idea of an extremely bitter atheist in a room somewhere in OPI headquarters taking her revenge, one nail polish name at a time. And I look forward to the rest of OPI's anti-Christianity-themed line, which I hear will include Fertility Goddess Fuschia, Ubermensch Ultramarine, and Go Screw Yourself Billy Graham You Deranged Nutjob Blue.

However, I have to question the accuracy of this particular polish name. Do friars even wear pants? I mean, I'm sure they do now, but the traditional image is a cassock or something, isn't it? I admit that "Friar, Friar, Vestments on Fire!" doesn't quite have the same ring to it. However, it seems pretty clear that OPI already gets their nail polish names by ripping off playground rhymes and then substituting words with whatever nouns their darts happened to hit in a rhyming dictionary, so eloquence is pretty much out the window at this point. We might as well strive for whatever semblance of coherence we can still scrape together, OK guys?

I'm also not sure why this name is part of OPI's "English Collection" ("shades designed to capture the vibrancy of London, while simultaneously offering the softness of a heathered English countryside!"). What about friars (or flaming pants) is uniquely English? Let's just take a quick rundown of where the major mendicant orders were founded: Dominicans? France. Carmelites? Israel. Franciscans, Servites, and Augustinians? Probably all Italy. Even the word "friar" itself comes from the French "frère" (meaning brother). Basically, OPI has picked one of the few major medieval powers that did NOT originate any large sect of friars.

Here's what I'm guessing: OPI got all it knows about friars from the same place I did--Robin Hood. This would explain the alleged Englishness of the name. However, let me point out that 1) though Tuck wasn't the meekest of friars, I don't think he ever actually lied to anyone, making this name STILL nonsensical, 2) this totally clashes with Sherwood green, 3) this shade would be much better suited to Will Scarlet, and 4) I don't remember any part of the Robin Hood stories where Friar Tuck goes through Maid Marian's makeup bag.

Whatever way I slice it with my longsword, this name does NOT make me merry.

Limbo Bimbo

What, dare I ask, IS a Limbo Bimbo? Francesca if she only went to first base with Paolo? The woman who takes the cheers of "How LOW can you GO?" at her local limbo competition a little too metaphorically?



If the latter, I think the creators of this shade have done an excellent job of capturing the spirit of tropical harlotry. Actually, this exact shade of pink is what I imagine on the toenails of the runner-up of MILF Island as she scrabbles desperately for a foothold during the Bikini Limbo-Off over the Pit of Snakes and Baby Oil.

I think the most pressing question, though, is what kind of woman wants to deliberately go out and associate herself with outdated misogynistic slang. I appreciate the rhyme, but in this context, it just feels like a set-up for a vaguely seedy limerick:

A lady out painting her nails
Hopes to lure in a new set of males:
"If my fresh coat of Bimbo
Doesn't catch trucker Jimbo
I'll look bad on Springer!" she wails.

Below the Belt

There are many things below my belt. However, I would be concerned if any of them were this color:


(spotting courtesy of Drisana)

Even if we are to take this name metaphorically rather than literally, I am still dubious. Below the belt: underhanded, dirty, not allowed. I can see traffic-light red, or corrupted-soul black, but all's-clear angelic white? I don't think so.

Then again, there are people out there who make an average of $1.79 an hour to determine the sex of baby chickens by squeezing out their feces to open their anal vents and look inside for tell-tale male bumps, while somebody got paid more than ten times that to come up with this name. Talk about below the belt.

I'm Not Really A Waitress

That's right, honey, you're a nail polish.



Oh, you mean the person wearing you? What is she? If this is her signature color, and her days are taken up by waitressing, I think I have a guess in mind. It starts with "p" and ends with (cover your eyes, young readers) "rostitute" or (OK, open your eyes now) "erson who doesn't have to stand on her feet all day to make a good living."

I assume this name is a nod to the stereotype of the would-be starlet who flies out to the Big City and, just until she gets her break, takes a job slinging burgers. (Do people in Los Angeles still eat burgers? She is probably slinging macrobiotic fiddlehead ferns. [Incidentally, Slingin' Fiddleheads is my new band name.]) Of course, when we check in on her in fifteen years, she's still there, calling the customers "sweetheart" and urging them to try a slice of the cherry pie (acai berry flan).

So, I guess my question here is: is that someone we really want to channel? I mean, maybe I'm just not fabulous enough, but rarely do I wake up in the morning and think, "Today I want to decrease my glamour quotient, you know, but I also want something that says 'I'm just not good enough for my dreams.' I wonder if any one product can fulfill both these needs. It can? And it also says 'I've abandoned my family and home for a shot at fame, but I'm stuck in a menial job while my rapidly fading looks make my chances of success ever more depressingly negligible'? Thanks, OPI!"

Don't Socra-Tease Me!

OPInterlocutor: Why have you left the Lyceum, Socrates? And what are you doing standing in front of the Sephora?

Socrates: Alcibiades got jealous when I was always hanging outside the gymnasium. But he doesn't seem to have a problem as long as I settle for teenage girls. What brings you here?

OPI: I am here to deliver a new nail polish shade.

Socrates: What is it called?

OPI: You will think me mad when I tell you.

Socrates: Is it a hideous color?

OPI: No...well, actually, yes. But that is not the reason. I have named it after you; it is called "Don't Socra-Tease Me!"



Socrates: ...Have you been sniffing hemlock?

OPI: Please, do you expect me to take advice on beauty products from someone whose idea of a well-put-together outfit includes gladiator sandals and a toga? Paris Hilton isn't hosting the Symposium tonight.

Socrates: When it comes to nail polish names, I know only that I know nothing. Will you enlighten me and tell me what makes a good nail polish name?

OPI: The best nail polish name, Socrates, is that which is beloved by the consumers.

Socrates: But is a nail polish name good because it is beloved by the consumers, OPI? Or is it beloved by the consumers because it is good?

OPI: You don't seem to understand how this industry works, Socrates. We have a few bowls of wine, toss an encyclopedia in the air, and throw a javelin at it. Whatever word it hits, we pay a slave boy to think of a word that sounds kind of like it and slap the name on the bottle. Give a few free samples to the disciples of Aphrodite, and bam! Suddenly they're lining up at the agora to tell you how witty your nail polish name is.

Socrates: Look, if you wanted to tell me you're a sophist, you could have just said so.

OPI: Anyway, I've got to run. I have a meeting scheduled with Sappho to work some product integration into her latest poem.

Socrates: I was wrong. I do know something. You guys suck.

Sexagon

Guys, I have made it big. My dream as a blogger has finally come true: today, I received my first kick-back! Our faithful midwestern nail polish correspondent Suzanna has sent me some nail polish that is the perfect combination of beautiful in color and hideous in name. (A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but I think we all know that tamely-named nail polish just doesn't have the same sparkle.) Thanks, Suzanna! However, I would like to assure you all that my devotion to strict journalistic integrity remains intact. I remain firmly committed to revealing and reviling the stupid names of the nail polish world (however, have I mentioned what a lovely name Suzanna is?)



Anyway, what is going on with Sexagon? I wish I could believe that this was just an unfortunate result of someone mixing up her Greek and Latin prefixes, but my time in nail polish academia has taught me cynicism. In fact, the reference is much more literary. I am pretty sure that this is actually the title of Edwin Abbott-Abbott's lesser-known and extremely pornographic sequel to Flatland.

An excerpt:

Their vertexes locked across the room. The sexagon slid boldly over the plane until he stood before the lithe young triangle. "Hey, baby," he said. "If I told you that you had a beautiful perimeter, would you hold it against me?"

The triangle blushed and looked shyly at her smallest angle.

"Come on, doll," the brazen sexagon continued, "Don't be obtuse. It doesn't suit acute one like you. You don't want to be a square, do you? I'm not going to stand here and complement you all night. Let me buy you a gin and conic."

"No, thanks," the triangle said. "What's your angle?"

"My angle? You could fill the null set with all the other guys in here who would give you the coordinates of the origin. Look, you know you're the right triangle for me. Let's go back to my place and we can give it an ol' whirl around the XXX-axis. Tangentially, it's cool if you're bisectoral, you can bring a friend."


I'd go on, but I have underage readers. Anyway, don't worry, moralists! I don't want to spoil the plot, but it all wraps up satisfactorily when the deviant sexagon does some hard time in high-security prism. The shy triangle realizes the error of hanging out in shady parts of the coordinate grid, joins the convex and becomes a nonagon.

Forgive, Forget, For Me I Will

Look, I know that the economy is rough right now. It can be hard for companies selling non-essentials like nail polish to make ends meet. But can I make a suggestion? If you must downsize your entire nail polish naming and marketing staff and replace it with one work of literature, make it a dictionary. DO NOT, under any circumstances, use the poetry journal of an eighth-grader whose nom de plume is Mistress Raventwilight Sorrowgoth.


(photo courtesy of Vampy Varnish)

"Forgive, Forget, For Me I Will"? What IS that? I want to call it a sentence fragment, but I think that is too generous. Sentence fragments make sense with additional words placed before or after them, but all that I can think might come after this is "The dark miasma of my tortured soul cries out. / Brandon didn't ask me to the Homecoming dance. / Life is an endless shadow."

Misa, it is no coincidence that when I tried to find a picture of this nail polish, the first page of Google search turns up this:



Forgive this naming travesty? I don't think so. Forget it? I'm trying as hard as I can. Do you think sacrificing a hamster to our Dark Wiccan Vampire Lords would hasten the sweet caress of blessed oblivion?

Basket Case

In honor of Independence Day, I have done my part to inculcate in today's youth one of our nation's most traditional moral values: condescension for poor nail polish naming. (Little known fact: John Hancock only signed his name so big because he didn't want to hold the quill tighter and risk smearing his manicure.) It is my privilege to introduce a guest entry written by Reuben, one of the proud vanguard of the next generation of nail polish mockery. Reuben is eight years old and enjoys marshmallow taffy, Rube Goldberg machines, and pyromania. Thanks for submitting this entry, Reuben!

Reuben's take on Orly's "Basket Case":


What a stupid name. You use it and a basket breaks. Oh, my God. A basket IS a case. Why do you need a case for a basket? And a nail polish bottle is also a case. It's only a little better than "Brunette on the Internet." Why the heck would a case be pink? It would not be a color that is bright and cheerful. It should be black. Or doorknob-yellow. Even though doorknobs aren't usually yellow.

Christian Court

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise...fear, surprise and cloaking our religious revolution in the guise of nail polish!



I mean, really, guys? Christian Court? (Let's just ignore the fact that this has no earthly [or heavenly] connection to any kind of color.) Do we...do we miss those? Personally I was getting kind of attached to that whole "separation of church and state" thing we've been working for a while. Did you get sick of that? I mean, I guess it would be pretty cool to turn my loud neighbor in for being a heretic. But then again, someone would probably accuse me of witchcraft, I would have to go through trial by drowning, and it would totally ruin my dress. So that kind of breaks even.

Let's just call the whole thing off, all right? You keep your nail polish, I keep my First Amendment, and if I see you again, we're all going to have a nice chat with the Comfy Chair, mmkay?

Vould U Like a Lick-tenstein?

Vy, hello there. Velcome to my castle. Vould u like a Lick-tenstein?


...no, I'm sorry. It's just not working for me. I'm trying to get into character, but what exactly is my character? I'm a Bela Lugosi-style vampire, I presume from the accent and the oral fixation. But the taxes were too high in Transylvania, so I moved to Lichtenstein? I mean, I'm not complaining or anything. Gorgeous stamps, the skiing in Malbun is lovely, I never have any trouble laundering money. But does it really have the right...atmosphere? It's very quaint, but as far as sinister gothicness goes, it could use some work. If I'm walking, I can make it from one end of the country to the other in a day, let alone if I'm flying on my raven wings of night. Where are my victims supposed to flee to? And speaking of victims, why am I asking permission? I'm not even asking if I can bite them, I'm asking permission to...lick? Am I a kinder, gentler, vampire? Am I a vegan? Am I a new-age vampire, sensitive and attuned to womens' needs, yet realizing that this makes me even more manly because I am not constrained by typical gender stereotypes? Or did I just have a run-in with the law and now I'm trying not to violate my vamp-parole? Also, what's with the "U"? Am I text-messaging my prospective lickee? If so, the question seems a little premature, as I would assume that if someone is in appropriate text-messaging range, she is not in the field of my questing tongue. And while I'm at it, what exactly is the pun supposed be here? Why am I offering her the country? I know you can rent it for a day, I guess I am demonstrating my immense wealth and largess? Yes?

OK, I think I have my character now, I'm ready.

Vill u plz sign this consent vaiver stating that I may gently graze ur neck with my fang while we sit in one of only two doubly-landlocked countries which by the way I own a significant part of because I am so rich...