Even though thousands of nail polishes launch every year, only a select few shades seem destined for mass popularity and true timelessness. These are the polishes that are unanimously loved by celebrities, professional nail artists, mainstream consumers, and even royalty—shades that become household names, are instantly recognizable, and are perpetually requested at the salon.
Over the last 20 years, a handful of notably influential nail polishes have retained (or even increased) their fame and fandom, but three hyper-specific formulas stand out in particular: Chanel Rouge Noir (formerly known in the U.S. as Vamp), Essie Ballet Slippers, and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark. Decades later, we’re diving into the history and lore behind each of them.
Rouge Noir—Chanel’s iconic blood-red hue—debuted in March of 1994 at the brand’s fall/winter 1994 fashion show in Paris. Karl Lagerfeld’s youthful collection was boundary-pushing and legendary, highlighting faux fur–trimmed tweed, iconic teddy bear backpacks, and bedazzled accessories (like cell phone cases) that would eventually inspire the wardrobes of Cher Horowitz, Dionne Davenport, and Tai Frasier in the 1995 mega hit Clueless. The models’ rich garnet nails also drew attention. Just two days before the show in Paris, Heidi Morawetz and Dominique Moncourtois (the director and international director of Chanel’s makeup creation studio) joined forces to cook up an at-home mix of red and black pigments until they landed on the perfect shade. According to Interview’s 2011 discussion with Morawetz, mixing their own polish shades wasn’t uncommon, but in this particular case, she was inspired by the glossy black finish of eyes and nails when looking at old black-and-white photos. Thus, a noir-inspired shade of crimson was born, and neither Morawetz nor Moncourtois had any inkling of the absolute pandemonium the color would create among the show’s editorial attendees.
Before the end of 1994, the color had been commercialized under the name Vamp in the United States and could be bought by the bottle, albeit with a practically constant sellout risk. Madonna wore the shade in her late-1994 “Take a Bow” music video, which led to nationwide shortages and mass-retail waiting lists by 1995. Rouge Noir was the global name for the polish, and in 2015, it became the one and only shade title as the previous moniker, Vamp, was retired when Chanel reformulated Le Vernis. To this day, Rouge Noir remains one of Chanel’s best-selling nail shades and has inspired other products from the designer, including 1995’s matching Rouge Noir Lipstick (famously beloved by Drew Barrymore) and additional nail polish shades like Metallic Vamp, a silvery purple, and Very Vamp, a luxurious brown, both of which were discontinued in 1997. In 2015, Chanel even celebrated the shade’s 20th anniversary with its very own Vamp Attitude Holiday Collection.
Additional Rouge Noir lore includes a hotly debated myth regarding the nail polish’s presence in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction, which featured Uma Thurman as crime-boss wife Mia Wallace. Pop culture fable will say that Thurman’s dark red manicure came courtesy of Vamp, but the movie’s production timeline seems to disprove that belief since filming took place in the fall of 1993, months before the shade hit the runway in March of 1994. But the polish’s pop culture punch doesn’t stop there. Nicole Kidman sported the shade in 1994 on the red carpet for the Interview With the Vampire premiere, and in 1995, actress Demi Moore reportedly bought a floor tester bottle straight from a display at Barneys in Beverly Hills due to national shortages. Even though Rouge Noir wasn’t the first deep red to hit the mainstream polish market (Essie’s best-selling shade Wicked launched around the same time, and dark red hues date all the way back to the 1930s), Chanel’s polish felt fresh, edgy, and chic, ultimately becoming one of the defining nail colors of the 1990s and beyond.
If someone asked you to name a pale-pink nail polish on the spot, more likely than not, Essie’s Ballet Slippers would immediately come to mind. Despite the fact that it’s 44 years old, its mass popularity has retained supremacy. According to Essie HQ, Ballet Slippers remains the brand’s top-selling shade with one bottle sold every two minutes. The “your nails but better” shade of pink made its debut in 1982, just one year after Essie Weingarten launched her eponymous polish line, and the rest is history. As the story goes, when Weingarten was growing up, her mom would take her to the local salon to get her nails done if she had done well in her ballet class. The creation of the shade is a nod to that tradition and the delicately luminous pale pink of classic ballet slippers. Of course, there have been plenty of pop culture moments since the early ’80s that have contributed to the color’s mega popularity. Perhaps most notably, the shade is a known favorite of the British royal family. In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II’s hairdresser sent Essie a letter requesting the shade, stating that it was the only color Her Majesty would wear on her nails. Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, is also rumored to favor the shade. Then, of course, there are the cameos Ballet Slippers has made in popular novels like The Devil Wears Prada in 2003 (yes, the blockbuster was a best-selling book before it became a quintessential movie of the Y2K era) and Don’t You Forget About Me, the 11th installment of the iconic Gossip Girl series, in 2007. Naturally, it was the shade Blair Waldorf used to paint Serena van der Woodsen’s nails while growing up on the Upper East Side of New York City.
Plenty of Hollywood’s elite have also worn the shade, including Emma Stone for the 2018 Academy Awards and Met Gala, Lady Gaga during her award-season spree for A Star Is Born in 2018 and 2019, and even Barbra Streisand, who is reportedly a huge fan of the pale-pink classic.
In the fall of 2005, OPI debuted its now-iconic Chicago Collection. Upon its release, the public immediately swarmed for collector-worthy shades like Got the Blues for Red and Chicago Champagne Toast, but there was another (even bigger) future hit in the mix: Lincoln Park After Dark, perhaps one of the most influential nail polishes in history and a shade that the brand credits with actually rewiring the definition of “mainstream” when it came to nail color. Lincoln Park After Dark wasn’t a traditional play on the pinks and reds consumers had historically gravitated toward. Instead, it represented a moody nod to goth counterculture. It quickly soared to superstardom and has maintained its popularity and demand to this day. As for its inspiration, Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood is known for being mysterious (and some say spooky) at night, which made it the perfect locale to inspire the brand’s now classically enigmatic shade. According to OPI cofounder Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, Lincoln Park After Dark (LPAD for short) was a game changer that extended past OPI as a brand and disrupted the global polish industry in its entirety. Post-launch, dark nail colors and trends catapulted, and shoppers around the world were snapping up LPAD at four times the rate of other OPI colors. Lori Pantel, chief marketing officer at Wella North America, shares that LPAD is a top 10 OPI shade all year round, with sales noticeably spiking once fall hits. Another fun fact? A bottle of the shade is sold nearly every minute and a half around the world. At the time of its launch, black was becoming a go-to neutral in the fashion world, and Lincoln Park After Dark offered people a version of the trend that they could wear as an accessory on their nails. The signature blend of black and aubergine looks almost black but has a tad more warmth that complements every skin tone. The color delivers the quintessential drama and edginess of a gothic black manicure with a touch of refined softness that initially made it feel completely novel. According to the brand, Lincoln Park After Dark gave people a new way to wear dark color, and what began as a daring departure from traditional nail color went on to become one of OPI’s most iconic, enduring fan favorites.
In addition to the shade’s colossal consumer fan base, it’s also beloved by many celebrities. Directly following its launch, reality star Lauren Conrad frequently wore LPAD throughout filming for The Hills, and Kylie Jenner has publicly touted it as her go-to shade of dark polish. Sandra Bullock has been known to wear the color on the red carpet, and musician Lizzo is another confirmed fan. (The internet also loves to speculate regarding potential, yet unconfirmed, Taylor Swift LPAD sightings.) Thanks to the color’s strong associations with fall, the OPI community has even founded an unofficial holiday to honor the shade on September 1. According to the brand, Lincoln Park After Dark Day has become a highly anticipated ritual that fans look forward to and inherently signals the return of rich colors, cozy routines, and overall excitement for a fresh summer-to-fall transition.
