It began with a bottle of Essie nail polish within the shade L’Orangerie. Again in 2020, Shana Eichenberg, the creator behind the favored TikTok account Classic Dusties, was attempting to up her at-home manicure recreation—and this orange-y pink hue was one of many bottles in her smaller assortment of polishes. Upon nearer inspection, she realized it was in contrast to the fashionable Essie bottles she’d been utilizing.
“It didn’t have the present embossment; it had a special label,” Eichenberg tells Attract. As a self-described hyperfixator—who additionally has an archaeology diploma—she was desirous to know what period of Essie the bottle was from. When she tried to seek out fundamental details about the colour on-line, her efforts had been futile.
“There have been completely no swatches of [L’Orangerie] on-line,” she says. That lack of intel impressed her to begin documenting the historical past of different possibly-forgotten nail polishes. “I needed to offer that colour, and others, just a little footprint on the web.”
4 years later, Eichenberg’s turn into one thing of a famous archivist within the classic nail polish area. Below the Classic Dusties deal with, her metier is discovering, reviving, and making use of enamels from way back to the Twenties. Even her youngest polishes are greater than a decade outdated.
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It’s a distinct segment matter, however area of interest subjects can excel on social media—and Eichenberg is pleased to have discovered her individuals. “As an introvert, I thrive on-line,” she says. “I don’t should be susceptible. I can put what I need on the market. But additionally hold what I wish to hold. It’s been actually enjoyable.”
Such content material is catnip for her followers, a lot of whom take pleasure in recalling less complicated instances when Moist ‘n Wild polishes had been solely $1. “Millennials are nostalgic for his or her youthful years,” Eichenberg says. “Then there’s Gen Z, who’re nostalgic for instances they did not even reside in.”
Millennials had been particularly engaged with certainly one of her movies this previous July when she posted her nails carrying Onerous Sweet’s Frigid—the precise shade of icy blue Lindsay Lohan wore as Hallie within the 1998 remake of The Mother or father Entice. The episode, as Eichenberg calls it, delighted her viewers. “Now THIS is journalism,” one commented, whereas others begged her to discover a dupe for the long-gone shade.