Fun Facts About Popular Beauty Trend That's 5,000+ Years Old

FUN FACT 1

The love affair with manicures and fake nails dates back to around 3000 BCE in China, North Africa, India, and Babylon. According to the History Facts website, the love affair with manicures progressed from there.

FUN FACT 2

It was all about gold and silver nails, with red and black eventually added to the choices. From the mid-1300s to the mid-1600s, nail polish was quite the concoction of beeswax, egg whites, gelatin, vegetable dyes, and gum arabic mixed together.

FUN FACT 3

In ancient Babylon, men painted their nails with a dark-colored ink called kohl. Women and men in North Africa and India dyed their nails with henna.

FUN FACT 4

Artificial nails were made from metal shaped to fit onto nails and often bejeweled.

FUN FACT 5

Nails were always long, too, if you could afford the process. Ancient civilizations believed that long nails symbolized wisdom, according to the Milano Cosmetic website. It was also believed that long nails helped communicate with deities, which is why sages and priests always had gorgeous manicures.

FUN FACT 6

When manicures hit Europe, they were more about the aesthetics of a clean, trimmed look. Parisian women started that beauty trend of simplicity which eventually migrated to the United States. If polish was used, it was a clear gloss. The first colors that popped up in the late 19th century were very subtle, rosy tints.

FUN FACT 7

According to Milano Cosmetics, the acrylic boom happened in the 1970s, along with the birth of endless colors. That is until the now-called French manicure hit the runways in Paris for a fresh, clean look and became the popular trend that swept Hollywood. The 1990s were still about the French manicure as black and multi-colored entered the picture more.

Now, anything goes without a real trend except keeping your nails nicely manicured.