The Dregs Collection

The Dregs is a different sort of collection from Tough As Nails Lacquer. Featuring four lacquers, The Dregs Collection was conceived from my recent obsession with drinking tea, the underbelly of Victorian culture, and a desire for a more calming collection. The color palate in The Dregs is much softer, featuring two work-friendly glitters and two pale, shimmery crèmes.  I hope that you enjoy wearing the collection as much as I did making it. Topcoat is recommended with all four, with thicker topcoat recommended for Builder’s Tea and Magdalene Laundry Service, although they all look great mattified as well.

The Dregs Collection will be offered for domestic pre-sale, as sets only, from Sunday, January 13 to January 27.  You can purchase via Etsy or I can invoice you if you email me at toughasnailslacquer [@] gmail [dot] com.  A limited number of sets are ready to ship immediately, but if a large volume is ordered, please expect your purchase to ship within 5-7 days.  

Special promotional pricing with FREE SHIPPING is as follows:

• Shorty Size Set: $20
• Full Size Set: $30

BUILDER'S TEA

Builder’s Tea has a milky mauve-y/brown base with brown and caramel glitter disbursed throughout. It reaches opacity in 2-3 coats. 

Builder’s tea is strong, inexpensive tea served with milk and sugar, usually consumed by the working class. During the Victorian era, it allowed workers to stay on for longer shifts, giving them a break that provided sustenance to those whose meals did not contain as much caloric value as the upper class.

MAGDALENE'S LAUNDRY SERVICE

Magdalene's Laundry Service is a buildable, shimmering, milky, pale pink jelly with rose-colored dot and hexagonal glitter. It reaches opacity in 3 coats; those with long nails may experience some visible nail line. Magdalene's Laundry Service is also great layered over any number of pinks that are likely found in a collection.

During the 18th-20th centuries, if you were a prostitute, unmarried, too flirtatious, or even too pretty, you may have been sent to a Magdalene Asylum. Magdalene Asylums, or Magdalene Laundries, were institutions for the fallen women of society, located throughout Europe, Canada, and the US. The asylums were originally intended to rehabilitate prostitutes and other women back into society, sustaining themselves by offering laundry services, but became prison-like, where women experienced hard labor, forced periods of silence, and abuse.

EAST END GIRL

East End Girl is a dusty teal with a hidden blue shimmer. It reaches opacity in 2-3 coats.

Jack the Ripper, the Victorian Era’s most notable (and still unidentified) serial killer, operated in Whitechapel in London’s East End. East End Girl is an homage to the at least five women who suffered under Jack’s skilled and brutal hands. These women: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly, are considered canonical victims of Jack the Ripper. All were prostitutes. While they were all viscously murdered, their deaths helped draw attention to the poor living conditions in the East End.

THE REDUNDANT WOMAN

The Redundant Woman is a rather peculiar color. Originally meant to be a pale purple, sometimes it has a tendency to appear gray or blue. Whatever shade it chooses to lean toward, it has a subtle pink shimmer. The Redundant Woman reaches opacity in 2-3 coats. 

Redundant women, also known as superfluous women, were the approximately 750,000 women in the UK during the 19th century who would remain unmarried because of a demographic imbalance in genders.