S2E22 - Royalty for Pocket Change

The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast

The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast
S2E22 - Royalty for Pocket Change
Jun 11, 2026 Season 2 Episode 22
The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast

For thousands of years, the colour on your nails marked your rank. Some societies enforced it, and the wrong shade on the wrong person could be a crime. That held for millennia. Then, in about a decade in the twentieth century, it all changed.

Modern nail polish is an industrial product, and it came out of the car business. In the 1920s, carmakers needed a paint that dried in minutes, and the answer was a lacquer made from nitrocellulose, the guncotton left over from First World War explosives. The same chemistry runs through early film, the first plastics, the paint on a model kit, and the resin in a 3D printer. Marc and Renee trace it from a mark of royalty to a shelf at the local salon.

Shout out to Lilly's in Maidstone - https://www.instagram.com/lillysnailsmaidstone or https://lillysnailsmaidstone.mytreatwell.co.uk/

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Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

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