I used to — back in the 1900s — have a couple of clients who were friends and coworkers. They occupied my last two Friday evening appointments and often kept me in the salon for hours after their nails were finished because neither of them was particular fond of going home to her hubby. One of them was the world’s most confounding woman. She was the most indecisive person I have ever met. She did not wear nail art, she just had her nails polished at the end of her fill. But she would stand in front of my polish rack for half an hour with two bottles of polish in her hand asking me, “Is this an orange-red or a blue-red?” Her second favorite question involved picking up any color that wasn’t red and asking, “What color is this?”
Yeah, I get that polishes often look slightly different on the nail once dry than they appear in the bottle, but after the first few times I came to the solid conclusion that she genuinely seemed unsure of the color overall.
As for her “orange-red/blue-red” dilemma, she insisted that she only liked blue-reds, and wanted to avoid any orange-reds.
I never understood how she could be confused about the nature of a color that she liked though. If you like the color you see, then why worry about it? Just wear it.
Then there are the clients who insist they want a color that matches their purse, their shoes, their shirt, their earrings, etc. So we stand in front of the polish rack together inspecting colors. I pick up the color that is anexactmatch to the thing they want to match, only to have them look at it and wrinkle up their nose and hand me a color that is so not even close.
The fact that we all perceive colors differently has always fascinated me, but it baffles me that someone can see two completely different hues and perceive them as identical.
Oh well. They tell me they want “peach” but they insist on pink. Doesn’t bother me at all. But I do want to say, “Lady, you do know that shirt you’re trying to match is yellow, right? In fact, it’s a blue-yellow.”
Print | posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 11:53 AM