Trend watch: Neon Nails

Wow, is anyone else seeing the 80’s coming back in force? Mr. Mo and I were at the store a few days ago when we saw a hoodie with a paint splatter design all over it. We just sort of looked at each other and shook our heads. For one thing, I am nowhere near old enough to be retro folks, and for another thing, a lot of these looks were bad enough the first time around, no need to repeat. Ya dig what I’m saying here?
For some reason though, just about every nail company out there has a neon collection for summer. China Glaze has Poolside, Zoya has Flash, OPI has their Brights, and everyone else is in a rush to crank out their own bright colors and keep up with the bigs. And since it’s my commitment to you to try and keep up with the trends (and because I’ll use any excuse to buy nail polish), I went out and picked up a couple new neon nail colors so I could give them a trial run for you.

I’ll be honest with you and fess up that I bought some knock offs, since I’m not nuts enough about this trend to spend the big bucks. The colors were very similar to others available and I just wanted to see how it feels to stare at these colors all day long. I ultimately couldn’t bring myself to buy a neon green polish and instead settled on hot pink and a bright orangey color. I opted out of blue since I have more than my share of blue polish already and don’t get nearly enough use out of the ones I already have to justify buying more. I used separate colors on each hand and once I saw the two side by side I was thankful I wear gloves most of the day at work.

When Mr.Mo saw the orange color he asked if was “like, a mango color”. I think that was much nicer than my personal description of “baby throw up orange”. Maybe it’s my fair skin, and maybe it’s the florescent lights at work, but this color made me feel ill every time I looked at it. I don’t know that I would’ve liked a true hunter safety vest orange any better, but since most neon orange this summer has a yellow tint to it  I would suggest skipping it unless you feel it’s flattering. I can’t imagine it working too well with very tanned skin, though I think that with dark skin or something slightly less pasty than my skin it might be nice. The pink was much more manageable, though it was a bit brighter than I managed to capture in pictures. It was easier to get opaque coverage with the pink and  it didn’t seem quite so out of place as the orange or a bright green might have been. It’s not my favorite ever, but I far prefer it to the orange. I think this color is pretty well suited for all skin tones and definitely more appropriate for the workplace than some of the other neon offerings. These colors are much better on a shorter nail and with a nice shiny top coat to keep them bright and fresh.

I don’t know that I’m quite ready for the neon trend to reappear, but it certainly seems like I’m in the minority on this one. What say you, have I seen the light, or am I not too bright?