On Making Things Nobody Asked For

Icthyo Sapien — part of an exclusive 9-piece collection available only at Gods & Monsters in Orlando, FL. Stop in or find them at godmonsters.com or @godsandmonstersorlando on Instagram to order.

Nobody has ever walked up to me and said: you know what the world needs? More nail polish. Make some.

And yet.

I used to hedge when people asked what I did creatively. If you say you write, they have a novel idea they’ve been meaning to get to — funny how knowing a writer makes that suddenly seem achievable. (Editor’s note: that sentence was edited down from something considerably worse. The original parenthetical was a run-on that made four unnecessary stops, doubled back on itself twice, and arrived at its destination looking slightly winded. We spared you. You’re welcome.) If you say you make art, they want to know what you have to fall back on, because they know people who are probably more talented than you and those people have real jobs, so.

So when I started making nail polish I kept quiet about it for a while. Waited to see if it was going to stick. And when I did start telling people, something unexpected happened: they were curious. Not politely curious. Actually curious. Nobody they knew had ever made nail polish. They wanted to know how. They wanted to know why. They wanted to know if they could watch.

A not-insignificant number of people who know me well said, without hesitation: of course you do. These are probably the same people who, when I was diagnosed with ADHD last year, said this is my surprised face while making no face whatsoever. I love you too. Thanks.

I did my due diligence before I started. Bought polish from indie makers across the spectrum — different aesthetics, different price points, different vibes. Did my field research like a person who spent twenty years in project management and cannot simply just do a thing without first building a knowledge base that would satisfy a doctoral committee.

What I found: a lot of indie brands make the New Fancy Polish in every color of the rainbow and sell them as a set. Which makes complete sense as a business decision and is not a criticism. But the brands I kept coming back to were the ones doing whatever they wanted — following some internal logic I couldn’t fully see but could absolutely feel. I don’t know how they plan, if they plan, what rabbit hole they fell down before they landed on this particular shade of haunted teal. I just know it when I see it.

Here is a thing about ADHD: we are all rabbit hole people. Every single one of us. No exceptions, no judgment, this is simply who we are and the people who love us have made their peace with it. You go down singlemindedly, learn everything there is to know, surface approximately six weeks later blinking in the light, and then tell everyone you meet about it whether they asked or not. Usually you learn the skill and move on. Nail polish is the rare case where I learned the skill and kept going. Make of that what you will.

Here is what I did not put in the PowerPoint I wrote when I decided to do this — and yes, I wrote a PowerPoint, I contain multitudes, we’ve established the ADHD — I did not explain why I actually love it. The real reason, underneath the business plan and the brand bible and the thirty-eight documented formulas.

I love making connections between things that other people haven’t made yet and then conjuring something that represents that connection. And it is not just the polish. It is the story behind it, the product description, the photos, the videos, the social media post that has to somehow communicate an entire vibe in three sentences and five hashtags. Running a nail polish brand is building a world, in small batches, repeatedly, with a Bengal cat supervising from a position of complete moral authority.

Is that art? I’m going to say yes and I’m going to cringe slightly as I say it, because I am fully aware of how that sounds. I am not painting the Sistine Chapel. I am conjuring a 15ml bottle of iridescent teal and calling it Icthyo Sapien. The comparison to Da Vinci is, objectively, a lot. We will not be doing the accounting in this metaphor, because the accounting is not art. The accounting is the evil anti-art. It exists in direct opposition to everything in this paragraph and we move past it immediately.

Nobody asks you to make art. Nobody asks you to write the book, choreograph the dance, throw the pot, mix the record in your basement at 2am. And yet people do these things anyway, have always done these things, will keep doing these things regardless of market research or whether there is any measurable demand whatsoever. They make the thing. They find their people. The world is, on balance, better for it.

Someone — and I am going to attribute this to Attila the Hun because I am fairly confident that is correct — once said that beauty is the face that launched a thousand ships. (Editor’s note: it was Helen of Troy. The line is from Marlowe. Attila the Hun was not, historically, a poetry guy. We’re leaving it.) The point stands. You make the thing because the thing is pulling at you from the inside and the only way to get any peace is to make it and put it in the world and see what happens.

So that’s what this is. Weird, small-batch, handmade nail polish with names like Icthyo Sapien and Cheddar Goblin and Nuclear Shelly Winters, made by a GenX woman in a Houston loft who goes down rabbit holes professionally and makes connections for sport. No one asked for it.

Some people, it turns out, are very glad it exists.

Those are my people.