I’ve been seeing the identical nail tech since 2024, and he or she and I’ve a couple of mutual understandings: We preserve the chatting to a minimal, know an almond-oval hybrid form seems finest on my fingers, and money tip over Venmo. However crucial and sacred bond we share is understanding that OPI’s Lincoln Park After Darkish is an ideal—perhaps the excellent—manicure shade. “That’s my favourite,” she instructed me once I requested it at our very first appointment two years in the past. We’ve been collectively ever since.
Sadly for my nailbeds, she’s been away visiting household this month, so I needed to guide an appointment with a unique tech final week—one I’ve by no means seen earlier than. As I settled into my chair and requested she sand off the intense crimson from my gel manicure and substitute it with the inky purple shade, she virtually fell out of her seat. “That’s a winter coloration,” she mentioned, eyes huge, mouth agape, like I simply requested her to stab me along with her file. “Are you certain?”
And reader, I used to be certain. Launched in 2005, Lincoln Park After Darkish is considered one of OPI’s most iconic colours, a phrase I don’t throw round flippantly. It’s been a staple in my magnificence drawer since I used to be a teen, when my nails have been bitten and ragged from after faculty area hockey practices. When it chipped away sufficient to disclose my bare nail, I’d layer on coats of the darkish purple stuff with out absolutely eradicating what was under it. Now, was this a good suggestion? In all probability not. However I’ll give my 15-year-old self a cross.
As an grownup who now has a standing bi-weekly appointment and not performs any type of organized sport, my nails are in much better form and the shade continues to be a relentless in my life, outlasting many friendships and relationships. I wore it for my first day of labor at Attract and am carrying it proper now as I kind this (the nail tech did certainly find yourself honoring my request) smack dab in the midst of July, experiencing what can solely be described as a very grotesque warmth wave.
Magazines and different media—even Attract—have lengthy reported that the shades of coloration we don ought to change with the seasons: In hotter months, we swap from darkish denim to white linen, faucet on pastel blushes, and add in strips of glowy highlights to our hair. Normally, nail colours observe swimsuit: The principles of society inform us that vibrant, shimmery hues are supposed to be swapped in as soon as the temperatures rise above 65 levels, so nails typically swap from navy to sky blue, burgundy to cherry crimson, and moss inexperienced to matcha.
Possibly it’s my Aquarius rising, however I don’t love guidelines. Rejecting how issues are alleged to be and including my very own twist may be very a lot my most well-liked technique of operation. So as an alternative of abandoning my moody manicures, I are inclined to double down—deep shades tickle one thing in my psyche {that a} pale impartial may by no means. I gained’t limit myself to establishment aesthetic selections when my coronary heart is telling me to please, please, select the darkish midnight choice that borders on goth.
It’s not simply because I’ve faint sprinklings of an individuality complicated, although—I’ve lengthy been hooked up to the concept that darkish manicures are probably the most flattering: Lighter shades appear to vanish into my pale-pinkish pores and skin, inflicting my fingers to look corpse-like and boring. However a deep shadowy shade, like Essie’s Caviar Bar or Olive & June’s It’s Truly Darkish Inexperienced, affords high-contrast to my fingers in a method that deeply soothes my soul. Whereas I do admittedly experiment with milky whites and vivid reds in the summertime months, I nonetheless are inclined to go back-and-forth between one thing new and my tried-and-true.
