What Color Nail Polish Do You Like?
I’ve been polishing my nails since I was a teenager. Back then, I guess I just wore whatever nail polish was available to me. As an adult in my twenties and thirties, I leaned toward bright pink colors. It seemed to go well with my black Swatch watch.
Time marched on as it always does, and I found myself unable to find a nail polish color that I really liked. Then I discovered a brand-name nail polish at the Dollar Tree that I had never used before. I knew it was a better brand name by the white nondescript package. I googled the product name, “Mineral Fusion,” and saw that Amazon had it for $9.99 per bottle.
Well, I went on a Dollar Tree hunt for months, searching for any Mineral Fusion nail polish color I could find. Some stores had them, some did not, and I knew once it was gone, it was gone. That’s how things like that work at Dollar Tree.
I did find quite a few color choices at $1.25 a bottle, and for someone like me who likes options, it was too good a deal to pass up.
I had been down and out last week with a terrible sinus infection, so I thought painting my nails would perk me up. I went into my nail polish stash and thought about what color I wanted to wear. I chose a deep, dark, shiny green.
When I bought that green color, I had Christmastime in mind, and that’s the only time I wore it. Even though green is my favorite color, I thought it was too bold to wear on any old day. Okay, it helps that St. Patrick’s Day is this month, but still, I chose it because I wanted to wear it.
It hit me hard that I had given up so much of my life worrying about being judged. I did. I was terrified of judgment, so much so that I watered myself down to prevent any criticism.
How many of us have done that?
I do know some people who don’t give a crap about what anyone else thinks of them, and I find them inspirational. I had an uncle who passed that was like that. He appeared as though he didn’t care what anyone thought about him. I admired that. And I noticed he got respect.
It dawned on me that most of us want to be around people who are authentically themselves. I think we feel better around people who aren’t trying to be someone they’re not. In my opinion and experience, those who put on airs are insecure people who want to be liked and respected by those they deem more influential than themselves. I know this because I was one of them.
I like people who are happy being who they are, no matter who is around them or what they have, and I aspire to be that person all the time.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s difficult to do if you’ve been a people pleaser, as I have. I had a need to make people feel good about themselves, regardless of how I felt. Sad, I know, but I’m writing this now to show how it’s possible to change for the better.
We have to be so sure of ourselves and in our own perception that no matter what anyone says or does, we still know we are good enough, and our happiness is solid within ourselves, never fluctuating because of people or life’s events.
Are you that person?
Can you look at yourself in the mirror and know that no matter what you look like, what you wear, or what profession you have, how much money you have, you feel good about yourself, no matter who you are around? See, that’s key. We can all love what we see in the mirror. It’s being around other people that can trip us up, making us shirk our belief that we are good enough just as we are. And then if someone says something off-key or hurtful, it stings.
There were times when I wore something I thought was cute and flattering, only to have someone say something negative about it, and then I felt awful. I actually had a woman I worked with years ago make it her mission to comment negatively on my clothes and footwear. Boy, did that hurt me. She had no idea, though, because I never told her that.
Meanwhile, in the same office, there was a younger woman who wore attention-grabbing outfits that fit her well-toned body beautifully, and the same woman who tore me down was nothing but kind to her. At the time, I feared it was my fault for wearing the clothes I chose and eventually quit the job to get away from her.
It was my fault, though. And there was nothing wrong with any outfit I wore. What was wrong was that I allowed that woman to speak to me the way she did and let her get away with making me feel bad about myself. I see that all too clearly now, but back then, I was a magnet for criticism and judgment. People just thought it was okay to speak to me like that. Unbelievable, right?
Here’s what I learned – and it took years to get here – that we have to shut out the noise from others and listen to our hearts. We have to hold our heads up high (not too high that we think we’re better than anyone else, just enough to exude confidence, not cockiness) and show the world we’re valuable and enough. That behavior in itself will quell the naysayers and anyone who thinks they have the right to tell us what we can do, what we should wear, or who we should be.
Trust me. It works.
But getting back to choosing the nail polish color, I felt empowered doing it. That’s what was different this time. I only thought about what I wanted, and that is huge for me. I’ve experienced so many scenes in my life where someone else thought they knew better for me than I did. It wasn’t until I healed, got stronger, and became keenly aware of the need to love and respect myself that I was able to know what is best for me and stand by it no matter what.
So, here we are in this life, where it is completely necessary to hold ourselves in high regard and shut out the noise from any source that tries to tell us who we’re supposed to be. We are bombarded with messaging that seems designed to show us we lack something, and that if we do this or have that, it’ll fix our lives.
I’m telling you, you lack nothing. You are enough, no matter who you are. You are precious exactly who you are today. You mean the world to the world, and you need to believe that. It’s not hogwash, it’s fact. We just learned a lot of crappy shit that screwed with our perception of ourselves. We can override it. All we have to do is try.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope I’ve offered some valuable tips to help you get living a great big happy life. What color nail polish do you like?
To choosing what you want,
Francesca
Written by a human for humans.
© 2026 FrancescaME | All rights reserved.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
