Nail polish

material · 1920 · Electric age

A quick-drying coloured nitrocellulose lacquer, created in the 1920s after quick-drying car paint.

A short history

Predecessors: Paint (40000 BC).

Principles and materials it uses

Cellulose — is made of. The film is formed by nitrocellulose: cellulose treated with nitric acid.
Dye — uses. Pigments and dyes give the polish its colour.

History: what it evolved from and what it influenced

Paint — evolved from. Modern nail polish was modelled on the quick-drying nitrocellulose car paint of the 1920s.

What it is a kind of

Cosmetics — is a kind of. Decorative cosmetics for nails.

Things built in a similar way

Celluloid — works like. Both are nitrocellulose: celluloid is a solid plastic, the polish is a solution of it that dries into a film.

Take Nail polish apart

How important it is

Rank in the importance rating of inventions: 1843 of 2848, score 31.1 out of 100. Direct links to other things: 5; fields of technology it appears in: 1; things built directly on it: 0. Hall of fame of inventions.

Similar things of the same time and field

Synthetic detergent (1916) — Cleaning agents based on surfactants.
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) (1926) — A plastic for pipes, cables and records.
Steam methane reforming (1926) — Producing hydrogen from natural gas.
Neoprene (1930) — DuPont’s synthetic rubber.
Haber–Bosch process (1909) — Synthesizing ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen under pressure over a catalyst.
Synthetic rubber (1931) — Rubber made from butadiene (Lebedev, 1910; industrially in 1931).