Nail Polish Is Now Outselling Lipstick

The Nails Have It!

Nail polish is a fun flashy, sophisticated and relatively affordable form of self expression--but it's also big business.

The NPD Group, a market research company, reports that sales of nail products increased by 59% among US consumers in the first ten months of 2011.

"The nail category is now surpassing lipstick," Bernd Beetz of beauty and fragrance manufacturer Coty, told WWD.

Nail color company OPI has played a significant role in the nail craze by launching celebrity collections with Serena Williams, The Kardashian crew, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and even The Muppets.

Here are some fun nail by the numbers facts the folks over at Fashionista.com gathered up. Enjoy!

600 BC: The approximate year the first nail polish was used (in China). Modern nail polish as we know it was invented in the 1920s by Michelle Menard. (No word on when the first neon leopard print was invented.)

64%: The number of women who use nail polish once a week or more, according to a Gallup study (via November's Allure).

$130,000: Price of the most expensive bottle of nail polish ever. It was called Gold Rush Couture by Models Own, a gold nail polish in a bottle with a hand-crafted gold lid inlaid with 1,118 diamonds.

$30: The price of the most expensive consumer polish on the market now. (Hi, Tom Ford).

$0.99: The price of the cheapest nail polish on the market now. (Wet-n-Wild, which has pretty much cost $0.99 since the 1980's.)

1994: The year Chanel released "Vamp," launching a zillion knock-offs and changing the face of nail trends as we know it.

10 feet, 2 inches: The length of Chris "The Dutchess" Walton's nails, the 2012 Guinness World Record champ in the coveted category of "Longest Nails."

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