Nail polish (nail varnish) is a lacquer applied to toenails or fingernails for appearance, but also as nail protection. Polishing afterward without adding another chemical layer is called nail buffing. Nail polish may have originated with the Chinese in 3000 B.C. The Japanese and Italians are thought to have been the first ones to use nail polish.[dubious – discuss] The Chinese used a colored lacquer, made from a combination of Arabic gum, egg whites, gelatin and beeswax.

They also used a mixture consisting of mashed rose, orchid and impatiens petals combined with alum. This mixture, when applied to nails for a few hours or overnight, leaves a color ranging from pink to red. The Egyptians used reddish-brown stains derived from henna to color their nails as well as the tips of their fingers.

Henna dyes are used to draw intricate, temporary designs on hands in Mehndi. Chou Dynasty of 600 B.C., Chinese royalty used gold and silver to enhance their nails. A fifteenth-century Ming manuscript cites red and black as the colors chosen by royalty for centuries previous.

The Egyptians used nail color to signify social order, with shades of red at the top. Queen Nefertiti,the wife of the king Akhenaton, colored her finger and toe nails ruby red; Cleopatra favored a deep rust red. Women of lower rank who colored their nails were permitted only pale hues.

Incas decorated their fingernails with pictures of eagles. Some Native Americans had colorful nails. It is unclear how the practice of coloring nails progressed following these beginnings.

Portraits from the 17th and 18th centuries include shiny nails. By the turn of the 19th century, nails were tinted with scented red oils and polished or buffed with a chamois cloth, rather than simply painted. In addition, English and US 19th century cookbooks contained directions for making nail paints.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, women still pursued a polished, rather than painted, look by massaging tinted powders and creams into their nails, then buffing them shiny. One such polishing product sold around this time was Graf’s Hyglo nail polish paste. Some women during this period painted their nails using a clear, glossy varnish applied with camel-hair brushes.

When automobile paint was created around 1920, it inspired the introduction of colored nail enamels. Nail polish contains nitrocellulose which is available in many different grades and is measured by viscosity. Nail grade nitrocellulose should be used for nail polish, as opposed to industrial grade which is available for use in furniture finishes, auto-paints and other various non-cosmetic lacquer finishes.

Nail polish manufacturers are known to use industrial grade nitrocellulose covertly to save money, as it is half the price of the nail grade nitro. Most nail polishes are made of nitrocellulose dissolved in a solvent (e.g. butyl acetate or ethyl acetate) and either left clear or colored with various pigments. Basic components included are: film forming agents, resins and plasticizers, solvents, and coloring agents.

Adhesive polymers (e.g. tosylamide-formaldehyde resin) ensure the nitrocellulose adheres to the nail's surface. Plasticizers (e.g. camphor) are chemicals that link between polymer chains, spacing them to make the film sufficiently flexible after drying. Pigments and sparkling particles (e.g. mica) add desired color and reflecting characteristics.

Thickening agents (e.g. stearalkonium hectorite) are added to maintain the sparkling particles in suspension while in the bottle. Ultraviolet stabilizers (e.g. benozophenone-1) resist color changes when the dry film is exposed to direct sunlight.

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