(The following post is a guest post from Archana Venkat)
My daughter is 26 months old and she knows what she wants. She
can describe things in detail, if not hit on the right word. So three days ago
when she returned home from the play area, she asked me for “coloring on
fingers”. One of her friends in the playground had pink color on her fingers. After
refusing crayons, color pencils and pens (all of which in her dictionary
correspond to “coloring”), I was about to give up when she pointed at a
magazine and showed me the “coloring.” Nail polish. That’s what she wanted.
So I went nail polish shopping, my first in the last five
years, and picked up two ‘safe’ shades – light pink and plum. It wasn’t easy
because there were over 100 shades to choose from. Evidently a lot had changed
in the nail polish world. I remember not having to look at more than 30 shades
in any brand during my nail polish collecting days. (My mother had chided me
once saying I owned more shades than what was available in the shops. I saw it
as a feeble attempt to curb my pocket money.) But such is life and if you don’t
move on you will be called an Aunty. (Well, even if you are savvy about nail
paint, you can still be called an Aunty over a lot of other things. But let us
not go there).
As I left the store, I wondered, had I not picked the pinks,
which color would I have settled for? There are several colors you can test and
then buy, but do you know which can be considered the safest bet for say office
wear or an interview?
I know we Indians usually don’t care about wearing flaming
reds, and hot pinks (or Zari, neons, lace and silks) to work, but when you are
on the other side of 30, trying hard to manage that growing girth, and have a
daughter who will gleefully point at greys in your hair and ask “what color is
that?,” you need to dress down and focus on looking smart (and sober), not HOT.
After much searching, I hit upon an online tool by OPI (a leading
nail paint and cosmetics brand), that helps you figure out what colors work
best for your complexion, nail shape and length. Called Try On This Color, it lets you customize the
dummy hand till it resembles your actual complexion and nail shape and then you
can virtually test what OPI nail colors work well for you and order them
online, where they are priced cheaper and discounts galore. An extended version
of this tool also shows what colors are ‘safe’ for you and which ones you can
experiment with, without looking tacky and inappropriate. I spent about 35
minutes trying out shades I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing and discovered some
not-so-Aunty shades that could look good on me.
In developed markets like the UK and the US, a set of 6 or
10 nail colors from a collection are often available at special prices, besides
offering them as tester kits. Such virtual nail color testing tools are key to
determine how many of those shades will actually look good on you so that money
spent on the pack is worth it. With India turning into a growing market for
cosmetics, it is a matter of time before such deals become common here. Our
cosmetics giants can do well with investing in such tools and mobile Apps.
I recently visited a Health n Glow store in Bangalore in an
up market mall and veered towards the nail polish section to see which of the
shades I saw on the OPI site were available in local brands. Just then a young
girl walked up and wanted to test the shades. To her horror, the saleswoman
told her they did not have any tester shades and that since they had also run
out of nail polish remover, she would only be able to dab a teeny bit of color
on the nail and immediately wipe it off. So much for the “experience” of nail
polish shopping. The girl left without buying anything, but I still bought one
shade without testing, thanks to the OPI tool.
About the author
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Archana Venkat is a Marketing and Business Development Specialist focused on building customer share in the services industry. She writes her own blog on Straight Talk With Arch.
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