Red is a high-energy color. It is sensual and romantic, dominant, passionate and confident. Christian Louboutin, Taylor Swift and Jessica Rabbit all agree with the color, and recently, Tiktok’s single girls did the same.
First is the Red Lip Theory, which proposes everything you need to collect, and dew is a swipe for red lipstick (really!). Now, enter the red nail theory, or, if you paint your nails in red, you’re more likely to get attention from your potential suitors. I clashed after seeing it take over my feed. I’m a 96-year-old baby (read: Generation-borne spikes), so the millennials in me want to prove that this is stupid clickbait – too dated!
For scientific testing, I asked for an iconic red at my next salon meeting: OPI’s Big Apple Red. It’s a highlight with a slightly warm candy apple red shade. While waiting for the nails to dry, I continued to roll. According to Sigmund Freud (and the Tiktoks who apparently followed his work), the red nail polish reminds people of the mother’s hands, especially when they were young and depended on them. This started to make me weird. But then my fingers got dry, so it was time to move on to the second phase: gathering evidence.
Suddenly, my fingers didn’t get that cleverly into every Instagram story and zoom session. Somehow, my hair couldn’t be stuck behind my ears. I almost beg for someone to comment on my newly trimmed nails. But, when I went out on Friday night, no man recruited my phone number on Crosby Street, no, Zero Bond music didn’t stop when I walked into the room. All these ROM-COM scenes that play in my mind are fantasy.
As the days went on, my nail polish began to chip, and so did my (small) confidence in this theory. There is one major gain, though: While I haven’t seen male attention lift directly or just praise by waving my hands, I do notice that the red nails strengthen my confidence. Coincidentally, when I exuded my confidence, I found myself talking to more people.
