David Letterman was inadvertently responsible for a big beauty trend. He asked Alicia Silverstone (doing the media rounds for her movie Clueless) about her pale blue fingernails in 1995 – she answered, “Sky, by Hard Candy,” and sent beauty geeks everywhere into a swoon.
Canadians living in the beauty-product hinterland begged Los Angeles-bound friends (thank you, Natasha) to score us a bottle. Those were pre-Sephora, pre-Internet shopping days. If you wanted a hard-to-find cosmetic, you had to hunt and gather it yourself. Fifteen years later, I still have my Sky, with the coordinating blue ‘diamond’ ring intact.
In the neutral-loving ’90s, nail polish meant pale pink for fingers, red for toes. But Sky, a chalked-out pale blue – the colour of an empty swimming pool – was a gateway. And the Cosmetic Industrial Complex happily fed that addiction, creating ever more unusual hues. The dried blood shades began courtesy of Chanel’s Rouge Noir (called Vamp in the US). Iridescent sparklers like Roach and Oil Slick made Urban Decay, and who can forget our obsession with OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark?
Now of course mauve-ish grey is the colour spotted on all the cool girls (think Essie’s Merino Cool or Sally Hansen’s Commander in Chic) and Ladies Who Lunch snapped up Chanel’s Paradoxal this season. (I think the fact that it comes in a Chanel bottle adds to the allure.)
Until recently, Hard Candy was just a fond ’90s memory. Even a brief stab at resurgence ended in 2008 when the brand was shuttered.
But now it’s exclusively at Wal-Mart with nothing costing more than $10 so you can grab every shiny thing you covet, guilt-free. Fortune Gloss shiny lip gloss ($5.98) has a Magic Eight Ball embedded in the cap to answer your love questions, and glitter-flecked Eye Candy Cream Shadow ($4.98) comes with its own matching teeny eye pencil.
But the Just Nails nail colours ($4.98), still with the plastic ring, are the real stars. Sweet P pale green is loaded with sparkle, and Frenzy is an electric blue that will not interest the ladies who lunch at all.
And that iconic, chalky-blue Sky? Wal-Mart brass has promised it’ll be back for Spring 2011. Just in time for pool season.
Anyone else have Hard Candy archivist tendencies?
Images in second photo courtesy Hard Candy.
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My Wal Mart has Hard Candy but they don’t have the nail polish. I look every time I’m in hoping they’ve gotten it but no such luck. I’m bummed because I’m a nail gal and I was looking forward to those!
I will find out and let you know. A girl needs her nail colours.
I remember huddling together with the girls at youth camp, trying to “create” our own shade of Sky since it wasn’t available in stores – with blue and green food coloring, and a bottle of white polish. We accomplished a similar shade, but when the polish started to chip we were all left with blue dyed finger nails! lol.
That is very cool. It’s that Can-Do spirit that made our country great! (or your country, whichever.)
In the meantime, Chanel’s Riva (launched yesterday) is a great (if pricier) substitute. And last summer’s Joe Fresh polish in Powder Blue was fantastic (some Loblaws stores still have a bit of stock remaining. Start hunting!)
I remember this sooooo well. I was obsessed wtih Clueless and could recite the script on cue when i was 14. I bought the Le Chateau version of ‘Sky’ and wore it every day in grade nine. I think i may have that bottle hiding somewhere too! It was the first time i experimented with nail polish. Le sigh, my beauty obsession began soon after :)
Find that bottle! It’s a historical artifact. (Or scrounge up a remaining bottle of Joe Fresh Powder Blue. :)
And definitely, Clueless still holds up. Have a screening for those poor sad souls who’ve never seen it, (and impress them with your dialogue retention.)
Mmmm… Candy… I likes the candy.