Can you remember?

Your first polish?
What got you hooked?

I dont really remember dabbling with polish much when i was younger, i wore a lot of weird make-up, grew up in the punk era, bright pink hair etc  
I probably tried one or two but gave up cos i was crap at it  
I'd always had fairly long nails just never did anything with them.
Then a year or so ago i started buying some of the 'Beauty Boxes' online. One from Latest in Beauty had a polish by Andrea Fullerton in a darkish pink, still got it i think.
Also a freebie on a magazine (i think) of a crackle polish. Didnt even know how these worked so used it on its own and thought it was crap lol  
Anyway started following the 'Nail Polish addicts' thread on MSE (been on there for years for money probs etc) and it blossomed from there  
Not quite sure what polishes i bought after that but i am definately now addicted  
I have bad times when i cba or my nails are crap but it doesnt take long to fire up the enthusiasm again  
Nothing like some pretty nails to cheer you up

My nan gave me a few of her old cheapo Constance Carroll (does that even exist anymore?!) polishes back in the mid 90's and I was hooked from then on, I must have been about 7

Probaly OPI Bogota Blackberry in a QVC set with Nail Envy about 10 or more years ago. I've only had nails since using Nail Envy as I've always been a nail biter ! I remember being totally sucked in by the demonstrations on QVC...I find it quote funny watching them these days, esprcially as its still the same people doing the demos and stuff!
It's possible though that I may have owned a Twilight Teaser polish by no17 though to go with the oh so gorgeous lipstick back in the 80's...!! (I'm showing my age now...!)

I bought a deep red in medi care for 29p, my sister bought a purple from the same range. Then we discovered the Constance Carrolls that were named after cities, I remember Hawaii being a pale pearly pink but my favourite was Zurich which was a pearly pale blue. It was unusual because nearly all polishes were pinks, reds or corals then.
I can remember visiting relatives in the summer holidays, always taking my nail stuff with me for something to do, at least I could buff with my beloved nailoid carnate! I remember my Dad moaning about the smell of acetone in the car too. I would have been about 11 or 12.
I took a break during what I fondly think of as 'the beer years' and then the 'baby years' happened, well, it was a decade by the time I was done with reproducing. I only really reignited my passion fairly recently.  

Laura wrote:My nan gave me a few of her old cheapo Constance Carroll (does that even exist anymore?!)

Yes it does

I have liked polish for a long time, spending pocket money in miss Selfridges when I was at school etc, had a lot of no 7 due to all the vouchers but I really got the itch on my 27th bday when I treated myself to a facial and mani for my bday. I had opi servin up sparkle layered over my mani and was desperate to buy the set (salon didn't sell the single bottle, blah blah must be sold together yawn). In nearly 2 years by collection has increased by over 550 bottles.

I used to do an Avon round when I was 14. I recall getting cheap polish, wearing different colours on each finger and people liking it and asking me to paint their nails. Might have been earlier actually as I'm sure I was the nail polish painter in primary school.
About 4 years ago a mate got me onto QVC Nails Inc sets, and I had about 50 polishes. I used the odd decal but never art. The mild interest escalated last Sept....

I've been keen on nail polish since I was a teeny toddler ! Do you remember Tinkerbell make up ? I'm pretty sure it was aimed at the pre - teen market in the middle 1980's ... I hassled my mum for months for a pink peel off nail polish and a magenta colour lipstick which smelt and tasted like cherries ! I absolutely loved my Tinkerbell make up !

i dont remember exactly, ive always liked nail polish...but when i became an addict...was when this new store came up to my city and i saw all the colours and stuff and i was hooked ..i just had to come back (over and over again, lol)

Can't remember the first polish that got me hooked...although, I think it may have been Opi - My private jet (the original holo one).
I used to bite my nails until I was 13, and my cousin then got me interested in doing my nails when I stopped biting them.

I remember buying my first polishes in Woolworths - a hot pink cream and a dark shimmery teal. I would have been about 9. These are still my favourite colours!

When I was in junior school we had a teacher who painted her nails a different colour every day - soon the whole class was joining in. We were doing skittle manis, dots, accent nails etc.............. this was late 1970s. I've never looked back, lol!

My first polish was a sky blue 17 one, I used to love blue when I was younger. I didn't wear nail polish much though because I had really bad eczema on my fingers and cracked cuticles and I didn't want to draw attention to my hands. Also, I couldn't grow my nails out because I played the piano.

My nail polish addiction started slowly two or three years ago.

I don't know what my first one was, but in my early teens I loved the Special FX nail art kits (my mum used to buy them for me from QVC)

fellrunner wrote:When I was in junior school we had a teacher who painted her nails a different colour every day - soon the whole class was joining in. We were doing skittle manis, dots, accent nails etc.............. this was late 1970s. I've never looked back, lol!

That's so cool, I wish I'd had a teacher like that!  

I used to have different nail art every week when I was teaching, and the year 7 girls would always be like 'Miss Miss what's on your nails this week??'. Some of them started doing some basic nail art that they'd wear to school to show me, it was very cute I probably taught them more about nail painting than science - whoops!

Sam wrote:I used to have different nail art every week when I was teaching, and the year 7 girls would always be like 'Miss Miss what's on your nails this week??'.  Some of them started doing some basic nail art that they'd wear to school to show me, it was very cute  I probably taught them more about nail painting than science - whoops!

Schools that allow nail polish?  

I wasn't (as the above comment probably tells you) allowed to wear polish at school, though I do have some fond memories of hanging out with my Grandma, cousin and sister and playing with smelly polishes we'd got from QD. There was an orange flavoured orange colour and a strawberry flavoured pink. Neither smelt very good  I don't know what really brought on the lastest craze though!

Well technically they weren't allowed to wear nail polish, but meh...

Sam wrote:Well technically they weren't allowed to wear nail polish, but meh...

The schools are still a bit uptight about it Sam, my daughter wears a colour change one that goes from a sheer white tint indoors to 'in yer face' pink outdoors. It looks like she only has polish at playtime! 

I can't actually remember what started my polish obsession. I chewed my nails from the age of four but for some reason I was always fascinated by polish even though I had no nails to paint. I think my first polish was a Constance Carroll which I badgered my Mum to buy for me and I just slowly added to the collection over the years.

Were they named after cities then Baba?

I don't think so, but I really can't remember as it was so long ago. I think they're still in my Mum's bathroom cabinet so I'll have a look next time I go there.  

As a child/teen I had a few cheap nail polishes: Collection 2000s, Constance Carolls etc. and probably until the age of about 21 I had around 10-20 polishes.

I think what started off my polish addiction was a combination of buying Gosh holo and reading beauty blogs, which I started reading because I was into indie make up and was looking for swatches.  

Haha Loola, that's great! We were always allowed nail polish when I was in school (I used to switch between Special FX Fickles and OPI Flick Chick Cherry - I only stopped wearing it when I started working in a cafe when I finished school). When I was doing my training, there was one girl who was on placement in a school where not even the teachers were allowed to wear nail polish...bizarre. I really can't see why it's such a big deal, when you're allowing girls to come in caked in makeup, with brightly coloured hair and wearing incorrect uniform. A bit of nail polish doesn't do any harm :p

I didn't dare wear it to school Sam - we had the fiercest head (secondary). Our skirts were measured, our heels were measured (slip ons not allowed, buckles or laces only), they even checked that we were wearing navy blue knickers underneath  We had to have our names embroidered on the back of the wrapover science overalls in exactly 1" lettering across the shoulders. We looked like boxers!!

Ours wasn't quite that strict Loola but they were militant on make up and nail varnish... one girl got put in detention in year 9 P.E. because the teacher heard her saying 'God I hate it when the wind blows and your hair sticks to your lip gloss' as she was running the cross country  Never really understood why most of the girls in my year were so obsessed with looking like barbie dolls at school as we went to an all girls grammar. Several of them used to get up at 5am to do their hair and make up (and then there was me, rolling out of bed ten minutes before I needed to leave...)