At 8 years old, it was also a whopping fortune — a whole 88 cents a bottle — but buy it I did, because they always had some color the budding beauty geek in me was lusting after. And at the end of the day, it only set me back a Snickers bar for the week.
When I graduated to adult beauty buys, which I had to budget for, I made sure I saved dough for a few bottles of my all-time favorite nail lacquers: OPI. At $8 a pop, it was a splurge... but *swoon.* The hues were vivid and varied, and so virtually chip-proof that it was more like a nail shield. To this day, these are the nail colors I compare all other nail colors to — even when I decide to break the bank on a NARS or Deborah Lippmann shade.
And by "break the bank," I mean somewhere in the neighborhood of $20, which when you think about it is still kind of crazy for a bottle of nail color. But sometimes there's that one ultra-specific shade only that one company makes, and I just flat-out gotta have it.
That said, I absolutely draw the line at the $50 price tag you'll find on a bottle of Christian Louboutin's new "Rouge Louboutin" nail colour. I draw the line well before that, actually. Because for $50, I could buy concert tickets. Or a new handbag. Or six shades of OPI and a candy bar. It is just that outrageous.
I get that Louboutin red is a legendary color in the world of style. I do. But $50? If Louboutin nails will cost me that much cash, I'm going to slap on a coat of OPI's "Cajun Shrimp" instead. I can guarantee no one will be able to tell the difference. Unless you have the eye of an eagle, in which case, I lose. But I think I'll take my chances.
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