It began with a bottle of Essie nail polish within the shade L’Orangerie. Again in 2020, Shana Eichenberg, the creator behind the favored TikTok account Vintage Dusties, was making an attempt to up her at-home manicure sport—and this orange-y pink hue was one of many bottles in her smaller assortment of polishes. Upon nearer inspection, she realized it was in contrast to the trendy Essie bottles she’d been utilizing.
“It didn’t have the present embossment; it had a special label,” Eichenberg tells Attract. As a self-described hyperfixator—who additionally has an archaeology diploma—she was desperate to know what period of Essie the bottle was from. When she tried to seek out fundamental details about the colour on-line, her efforts have been futile.
“There have been completely no swatches of [L’Orangerie] on-line,” she says. That lack of intel impressed her to start out documenting the historical past of different possibly-forgotten nail polishes. “I wished to present that shade, and others, a bit of footprint on the web.”
4 years later, Eichenberg’s turn out to be one thing of a famous archivist within the classic nail polish house. Below the Classic Dusties deal with, her metier is discovering, reviving, and making use of enamels from way back to the Nineteen Twenties. Even her youngest polishes are greater than a decade previous.
TikTok content material
This content material may also be considered on the location it originates from.
It’s a distinct segment subject, however area of interest subjects can excel on social media—and Eichenberg is blissful to have discovered her individuals. “As an introvert, I thrive on-line,” she says. “I don’t should be susceptible. I can put what I need on the market. But in addition maintain what I need to maintain. It’s been actually enjoyable.”
Such content material is catnip for her followers, lots of whom take pleasure in recalling easier instances when Moist ‘n Wild polishes have been solely $1. “Millennials are nostalgic for his or her youthful years,” Eichenberg says. “Then there’s Gen Z, who’re nostalgic for instances they did not even dwell in.”
Millennials have been particularly engaged with one among her movies this previous July when she posted her nails sporting Onerous Sweet’s Frigid—the precise shade of icy blue Lindsay Lohan wore as Hallie within the 1998 remake of The Guardian Lure. The episode, as Eichenberg calls it, delighted her viewers. “Now THIS is journalism,” one commented, whereas others begged her to discover a dupe for the long-gone shade.
