I’ve been seeing the same nail tech since 2024, and she and I have a few mutual understandings: We keep the chatting to a minimum, know an almond-oval hybrid shape looks best on my hands, and cash tip over Venmo. But the most important and sacred bond we share is knowing that OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark is a perfect—maybe the perfect—manicure shade. “That’s my favorite,” she told me when I requested it at our very first appointment two years ago. We’ve been together ever since.
Unfortunately for my nailbeds, she’s been away visiting family this month, so I had to book an appointment with a different tech last week—one I’ve never seen before. As I settled into my chair and requested she sand off the bright red from my gel manicure and replace it with the inky purple shade, she almost fell out of her seat. “That’s a winter color,” she said, eyes wide, mouth agape, like I just asked her to stab me with her file. “Are you sure?”
And reader, I was sure. Launched in 2005, Lincoln Park After Dark is one of OPI’s most iconic colors, a word I don’t throw around lightly. It’s been a staple in my beauty drawer since I was a teenager, when my nails were bitten and ragged from after school field hockey practices. When it chipped away enough to reveal my naked nail, I’d layer on coats of the dark purple stuff without fully removing what was below it. Now, was this a good idea? Probably not. But I’ll give my 15-year-old self a pass.
As an adult who now has a standing bi-weekly appointment and no longer plays any kind of organized sport, my nails are in far better shape and the shade continues to be a constant in my life, outlasting many friendships and relationships. I wore it for my first day of work at Allure and am wearing it right now as I type this (the nail tech did indeed end up honoring my request) smack dab in the middle of July, experiencing what can only be described as a truly grotesque heat wave.
Magazines and other media—even Allure—have long reported that the shades of color we don should change with the seasons: In warmer months, we switch from dark denim to white linen, tap on pastel blushes, and add in strips of glowy highlights to our hair. Usually, nail colors follow suit: The rules of society tell us that bright, shimmery hues are meant to be swapped in once the temperatures rise above 65 degrees, so nails often switch from navy to sky blue, burgundy to cherry red, and moss green to matcha.
Maybe it’s my Aquarius rising, but I don’t love rules. Rejecting how things are supposed to be and adding my own twist is very much my preferred method of operation. So instead of abandoning my moody manicures, I tend to double down—deep shades tickle something in my psyche that a pale neutral could never. I won’t restrict myself to status quo aesthetic choices when my heart is telling me to please, please, choose the dark midnight option that borders on goth.
It’s not just because I have faint sprinklings of an individuality complex, though—I’ve long been attached to the idea that dark manicures are the most flattering: Lighter shades seem to disappear into my pale-pinkish skin, causing my fingers to look corpse-like and dull. But a deep shadowy shade, like Essie’s Caviar Bar or Olive & June’s It’s Actually Dark Green, offers high-contrast to my hands in a way that deeply soothes my soul. While I do admittedly experiment with milky whites and vivid reds in the summer months, I still tend to go back-and-forth between something new and my tried-and-true.
