I’m not a fan of nail varnish because I hate having to wait for it to dry while I could be doing something more interesting with my hands (read: writing). Besides, I have the annoying habit of scratching it away (as opposed to gently removing it…) as soon as I see the tiniest bit of varnish peeling away from my nail. Though I have such a negative personal history with nail varnish that doesn’t allow me to get really excited when a new nail product is released, I find hard to resist the colours recently launched by Strange Beautiful.
The main reason is that there is a strong art/design connection with Strange Beautiful’s nail varnish. I have often wondered in the past why make-up designers do not take their inspirations for their colour palette from particular paintings or interior design objects. I genuinely think this would allow them to come up with amazing and unusual shades and also with slightly more clever make-up names. Apparently, I have managed to telepathically transmit my idea to the people behind Strange Beautiful.
The main inspiration for one of their first colours – a fierce and glossy red – came indeed from Ettore Sottsass’s flaming red “Valentine” typewriter. Italian architect and designer Sottsass is the mind behind some of the icons of Italian design, among them the legendary “Lettera 36” typewriter for Olivetti. In 1969 Sottsass designed in collaboration with Perry King and Albert Leclerc the Olivetti “Valentine” typewriter. This was supposed to be an absolutely transgressive object, for its shape, silhouette and colour. The “Valentine” was meant to be totally different from traditional typewriters: it looked trendier and infinitely more chic as it could be stored in a red case and comfortably carried around. The "Valentine" also had a sort of intrinsic sociological meaning: arriving the year after the 1968 revolutions, it represented a new beginning and a way to state that working could have been transformed into a fun activity (Olivetti’s traditional typewriters were usually gray).
These were probably only the secondary reasons why illustrator and beauty entrepreneur Jane Schub was mesmerised by Sottsass’s typewriter. The main reason was indeed the fact that the colour of the “Valentine” could have provided a wonderful shade of nail varnish. Little by little, Schub realised there were other art pieces that might have provided great inspirations for nail varnishes, such as Andy Warhol’s series of paintings entitled “Shadows”, that she saw at the Dia:Beacon Museum, with their black “peak” on a coloured ground. 
But Schub also explored the possibilities offered by Josef Albers’s colour theory, based on the relativity or interaction of colours and stating that the same colour will appear differently when viewed against other colours. All these inspirations soon led Schub to create with business partner Susan Strange a bold and vibrant library of nail varnish colours with some kind of artsy connections (there are for example also an Art Nouveau teal and a mid-century modern orange among the other shades).
The eight nail varnishes (image from The New York Times) – free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, and DBP (dibutyl phthalate) – are packaged in a simple bottle with no label and the whole set is sold at $79 at Bergdorf Goodman. There is also a sort of exclusivity involved in it as the colours will not be issued again. Maybe this is what "nail art" should be really about and maybe Strange Beautiful’s colours would convince me not to destroy my nail varnish as soon as it chips. After all I wouldn’t vandalise a work of art, would I?
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Nail art is an imaginative and artistic process, involving special care and expertise for bringing out the best effects. Different techniques and methods are employed by the nail artists to attain perfection in this art. These techniques may vary from hand painted designs and patterns to various artwork created with the help of specific nail coloring and designing tools such as air gun brushes and nail pencils.