Throwback Lacquer

Welcome back to the next installment of the Reswatch Rewind! Today I have the polish that started my nail polish addiction, @jessicacosmetics Cabernet Creme. Cabernet Creme is not a creme, but a wine red shimmer.

As I stated in my debut post, I was obsessed with pink-and-white acrylics back in the mid-2000s. However, that came to an end in a streak of bad luck in December 2006, which culminated in the loss of my restaurant hostess job. I was leaving for a semester abroad in the UK in January 2007, so I didn’t have the time to find work again.

While I was in the UK, the British pound to US dollar conversion rate was at an all-time high; typically £1 GBP to $0.50 USD. I was extremely lucky and got an allowance from my family, but due to the conversion rate, I had to make every penny count. As the semester went by, I started to miss acrylic nails, so I stopped by a nail salon to see their prices...and holy crap, was it out of my price range! Back in the US, I was used to $25 USD for a full set...in the UK, it was £30 GBP/$60 USD!!! Prior to my acrylic nail obsession, I’d been a nail-biter for as long as I could remember. If I didn’t have fake nails, they were chewed stumps. Deflated, I went back to my flat and decided to take care of the natural nails I did have.

Boy, did my natural nails flourish while I was in the UK! For the first time in my life, I finally had natural nails that extended past my fingertips! For reasons I don’t remember, I actually brought a manicure kit with me, so I had OPI Nail Envy, OPI base and top coat and Jessica Cosmetics Cabernet Creme. Cabernet Creme was an impulse buy from Target, probably because it reminded me of my middle school nail polish love, Revlon Street Wear Blood. Oh, if I only knew then that this would be life-changing!

Hello internet world, my name is Janice and I am the face behind Throwback Lacquer. You may recognize my nails from Glitter Gloss Garbage/Hey Aprill and my personal IG/Twitter, @the_asian_girl. I’ve been actively collecting nail polish since 2008 and keep a chronological spreadsheet with corresponding nail wheel swatches. I was inspired by @inegeek’s quest to swatch her entire collection, so I’m introducing the Reswatch Rewind! I’ll be posting a daily swatch from my collection for the foreseeable future; I have around 2500 polishes in my personal/non-PR-related stash. There might also be a bit of TMI and personal stories that remind me of said polishes.

My first swatch is OPI Eat’n Eggplant, from the New England fall/winter 1998 collection. It’s a brownish aubergine shimmer, opaque in 2 coats. I miss the silky smooth application of black label OPI shimmers and the thinner, pre-ProWide brushes.

Eat’n Eggplant actually predates my active collecting; I bought it at a salon while getting a mani/pedi for my cousin’s June 2006 wedding. I actually had my first brush with this polish back in January 2005. Do you guys remember when porn star pink-and-white French manicures were all the rage?! I thought I was the *~*cLaSsIeSt*~* bitch in the place whenever I had my pink-and-white acrylics in the mid-2000s. My college boyfriend was a huge fan of the look, so I faithfully came into the nail salon every other week for a fill. During one of those fills, I impulsively picked Eat’n Eggplant as my mani color, the same night we rolled on Ecstasy. Little did I know, that weekend would be our last as a couple, because he was also seeing a rich girl at his dorm. I had a lot of baggage from that relationship and wonder if I bought it back in 2006 as a bittersweet remembrance.