New cap lets nail polish customers flip a tip for a true color match

New vegan nail polish brand lets consumers ‘try’ the product before purchase through the use of a custom cap fitted with a fingernail-style chip painted with the color of the polish inside.

To test the polish, consumers overlay the component on their own fingernail to ‘try’ the color without having to open the bottle.
To test the polish, consumers overlay the component on their own fingernail to ‘try’ the color without having to open the bottle.

Nail polish bottles, while ubiquitous, have long been the bane of consumers’ manicure and pedicure experiences, especially with the growing popularity of the gel polish market. While the nail-polish color may appear one way in the bottle, once on the nail, it may look very different and not at all what the consumer expected. Gel polish has exacerbated the problem, as the packaging requires UV protection, resulting in an opaque bottle.

In 2012, Aurel Tony Kemeny Jr., Founder of Kemeny Designs and LBK Nails, set about to create a nail lacquer product that would not only offer one of the most vegan-friendly formulas, but also eliminate the issues associated with color matching at salons and retail. His solution: a multifunctional bottle cap with a hinged design that includes a fingernail-like component painted to match the polish inside the bottle. To test the polish, consumers overlay the component on their own fingernail to “try” the color without having to open the bottle—a practice that is especially vexing for retailers.

Shares Kemeny, it is estimated that stores lose 2% on maintenance due to consumers opening bottles of nail polish at point-of-sale for testing, with some retailers having to put paper on the retail displays to avoid damage. “It’s not good for the bottles to be opened and tested, it does nothing for the life of the polish, and it can cause contamination,” he says. “It just isn’t a very nice thought that your brand-new nail polish has been tested by other shoppers. This is a worldwide problem.

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