Here’s something to think about the next time a cashier, with long painted fingernails, takes an annoying amount of time to ring up your purchase. Is there something in the history of fingernail fashion trends to explain her bout with the cash register?
The custom of growing long fingernails probably began in ancient Asian cultures. Asian aristocratics, both men and women, grew long fingernails to show that they were too high in social ranking to perform manual labor, according to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org). Just how long ago this custom began is uncertain. However, the encyclopedia states that the use of fingernail polish can be traced as far back as 3000 BCE. The Chinese used to color their fingernails by painting them with lacquer or with a mixture made from flowers that, after several hours, stained their fingernails pink or red. The ancient Egyptians also used a reddish-brown dye to color not just their fingernails, but their fingertips too.
The link between ancient times and modern times is murky when it comes to the practice of fingernail painting. However, evidence from the beginning of the 19th century shows that women of that time were still tinting their fingernails with red oils but also buffing them with a chamois cloth to make them shiny, according to Wikipedia. That practice of dyeing and then buffing fingernails may have continued to this day had it not been for a particularly surprising development that occurred around 1920. That’s when automobile paint was created, according to the encyclopedia, and the idea of colored fingernail polish quickly followed.
Extremely long fingernails became a popular fashion trend in the U.S during the late 1970s. What made long fingernails so popular among modern women? Were women celebrating the fact that they were no longer doomed to domestic drudgery such as scrubbing clothes on a washboard or kneading dough each morning to make their daily bread? If so, those celebrations were understandable but a glance into the future reveals yet another cause for celebration.
As time progressed, more and more women would replace those old chores with the responsibilities of new positions in careers such as computer technicians, surgeons and mechanics – in other words, jobs that also required manual dexterity. Yet, the work of trailblazing women such as these has never been considered a cause for embarrassment or shame. Women instead appreciated these new job opportunities as a reward for their struggle against gender discrimination.
In any case, long fingernails no longer indicate that a person is a member of the leisure class. On the contrary, long fingernails are commonly seen on women actually performing their job duties! In fact, searching for a logical reason for long fingernails may even be futile, and perhaps that is why the trend seems to be fading away again.
However, if long fingernails are no longer a status symbol nor at the height of fashion, it’s hard to understand why a woman, such as the cashier mentioned above, would still chose to be handicapped by them. They create a daily struggle with simple things like the buttons that appear on everything from ATMs and clothing to elevators and telephones. In my opinion, long fingernails make about as much sense as going for a walk in a pair of high heeled shoes.
