Learning to speak Polish-ese

Hello!

On the road between casual nail polisher and polish obsessed, there are many new things to learn, and this blog is partly about my trials and tribulations while learning them. Not the least of these, however, is learning the jargon that polish lovers use. For this reason, I have decided to compile a dictionary of Polish-ese. 

'No-Buy' (noun): A predetermined period of time when the polish lover (henceforth known as 'PL') will refrain from buying nail polish. Generally speaking, the No-Buy will last approximately 20% of the actual time pledged by the PL. For example, if the PL says she will go 30 days without buying polish, she will likely only go about 6 days before falling off the wagon. However, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the amount of time that the PL swears off buying polish and the amount of time she will actually refrain from buying; that is, the longer the amount of time pledged, the sooner the PL will abandon the No-Buy. Regardless of this, if the PL makes it past the 20% mark of the pledge even by one day, this is impressive and she should be praised and rewarded with a bottle of polish. 

'Dupe' (noun): This is a polish that looks exactly like another polish, usually one made by a much more expensive brand. The origin of this term is disputable; while most people believe it is short for 'duplicate', some believe it comes from the verb 'to dupe', as in 'I can't believe I was duped into paying $25 for this polish when I could have had purchased the cheaper brand for $1.99!'

Lemming (noun or verb): A polish that a PL sees on a blog and decides she has to have. The origin of this refers to how the PL will run around madly thinking of nothing else, sometimes to the point of running off of a financial cliff in order to obtain said polish. The only way to restore sanity to the PL is for them to obtain the polish they are lemming. Unfortunately, the PL usually finds another lemming to lemming as soon as they get the previous lemming they were lemming.

'Untried' (noun): A polish that a PL has purchased, but hasn't yet worn. The use of this term implies that the untried is one among many untrieds owned by the PL (if this sounds like hoarding, that's because it's a closely related phenomenon). This is in part true because a polish isn't an 'untried' the moment it is brought home; it has to be owned for a time before it becomes an untried; usually, it becomes an untried once the PL buys another polish before having tried the first polish. A tragic side effect of the 'untried' phenomenon is that it often results in one or more dupes (see above). 

'Holo' (noun): A polish that gives a 3D rainbow effect; this is short for 'holographic'. There appears to be something in holographic polish formulas that react with the body chemistry of the PL, causing her to immediately crave ever more colors of  holographic polishes; in some cases this reaction is severe and will lead the PL to pay outrageous prices on eBay to obtain such polishes. Often the PL will try to combat this with a 'No-Buy', but this strategy usually fails even with non-holographic polishes (see above), and is not strong enough to combat the chemical addiction. Thankfully, there is a substitute drug that will help combat this; see 'SpectraFlair'.

'SpectraFlair': A magical substance that turns ordinary polishes into holographic polishes, at a fraction of the cost. Unfortunately, this is hard to find. PLs whisper rumors of SpectraFlair sightings the same way conspiracy theorists whisper about sightings of Big Foot. If you get your hands on some, you will have earned the right to count yourself among the well-and-truly polish addicted. :)

Thanks for reading! :)

Hugs and love,
M.