Hard Candy Nail Polish is Back!
The Original Hard Candy nail polish returns to Walmart stores in Claws Up!, Coconut, Sky, and Mint for $4 each. (Photo: Hard Candy)
Today we have nail polish in every conceivable color, texture, and finish available at any drugstore, but 20 years ago that was not the case with pinks and reds dominating the shelves. I’ve always had a passion for beauty products, specifically nail polish, and I remember buying bottles of white nail polish and hand-mixing in drops of my prized Wet n Wild dark blue nail polish to create my own pale blue shade. Pastel nail polish just didn’t exist!
And then a miracle happened. I was with my parents at a trade show in New York shopping for their boutique when I spotted the most gorgeous nail polishes—in mint green, baby blue, pale yellow, lavender—in chic, squared-off bottles all adorned with coordinating jelly rings. I begged my mom to get them for our store—despite their then-steep $12 price tag—because if I was freaking out over them so would all my friends and girls everywhere. Thankfully she believed in me and Hard Candy was a hit, even in my small town.
Soon after, the Hard Candy nail polish line popped up in my bible, Seventeen magazine. It said that Alicia Silverstone was obsessed with Sky (she had just worn the baby blue shade on David Letterman) and that Drew Barrymore was a fan of Violet (the pale lilac lacquer). I have to admit, I felt pretty cool that I “discovered” this fad before it made the news, and looking back perhaps this was mere foreshadowing of my career as a beauty editor. And maybe it justifies the way I used all my hard-earned babysitting money to fund a fancy nail polish collection. (Which is still growing rapidly to this day.)
Hard Candy Nail Polish is now available in Tangerini, Girlie, Scam, and Zombie. (Photo: Hard Candy)
Sadly I didn’t hang on to my first edition Hard Candy polishes, but I clearly never outgrew them. As soon as I caught wind of a 20th anniversary revival I did everything I could to track down a sample of Sky, the pale blue shade that was Alicia Silverstone’s favorite—and later mine. It still comes with a matching jelly ring! The 20th anniversary collection includes five old school shades (Mint and Coconut were definitely proudly displayed on my vanity back in the day and I’m thrilled to have them back) as well as three trendy new shades. Pastel and colorful nail polish may not be as novel to teenagers now as it was back then, but trust me when I say these lacquers are still worth it. At only $4 each (miraculously one-third the price they were back in 1995!), you can definitely collect them all this time around.
Scoop up the polishes along with a limited edition eyeshadow palette ($6), bronzer/highlighter duo ($7), liquid liners ($6), and lipglosses ($5) exclusively at Walmart on April 25 for a limited time.
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