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misswallflower:

The Illustrated History Of Nail Art by Refinery29 (part 2)

1)  1800s - 1900s — Manicures were popular once again during the Victorian age with a simple treatment of a light tint of red oil, accompanied by a chamois cloth buffering. This minimalistic treatment was in part due to the Victorian ideals of transparent inner beauty, physical hygiene, and moral purity. Etiquette guides recommended just a tad of lemon juice or vinegar to brighten the nail tips while Flaubert’s most famous novel (1856) described Emma Bovary’s nails as “scrubbed cleaner than Dieppe ivory”.

2) 1920s — It was the irreverent flapper of the ’20s who, decked out with new clothes and a new attitude, reinvigorated the nail scene with the old-school red as well as the moon manicure.

3) 1930s — In 1932, the first bottle of Revlon’s nailpolish hit shelves in colors never seen before — making fashionable nail options more accessible than ever before, adding some economical style during the Depression. Polish as we know it also came from this era due to a new way of thinking — to stop staining the nail and coat it with hard enamel instead. The revolutionary idea had come from a French makeup artist, Michelle Menard, who was inspired by automobile paint. The new polish was concocted by the Revlon brothers and a chemist Charles Lachman. 

4)  1930s - 1950s — In 1934, the dentist Maxwell Lappe created the first set of fake nails for clients who bit their nails. In 1955, another dentist Frederick Slack, who after attempting to mend a broken nail with acrylic, accidentally invented what was called the acrylic sculpting-nail extension.