How we name our shades: stones, hours and light

A shade name does two jobs. It tells the wearer what the colour looks like before the cap is off, and it fixes the bottle in a system so the next shade has somewhere to go. The houses that do it well use a rule: a number, an address, a pun, a person.

India Anaïs names its shades in three families, stones, hours and light, and gives every shade a two-digit number. The name says what the colour is and what the finish does. The number says where it comes in the edition. The first edition, the Amethyst Edit, is sold out; the next edition is planned for spring 2027.

How do luxury houses name nail polish shades?

Chanel's numbers are used as much as the words, so a customer can ask for 105 and be understood (Chanel). Hermès launched Les Mains Hermès on 15 October 2021 with 24 shades taken from the house's enamel bracelets, the count matching its address, 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré (Wallpaper*). Dior gives its red the number 999, the same number as its lipstick (Dior).

Each system has a logic. Numbers are precise and travel across languages. Archive names tie a colour to the house. Puns are memorable and cheap to extend. First names, as at Gucci, give a bottle a character (Sephora UK). The house chose a fourth route: an image that describes both the colour and the finish.

What are the three families in our naming system?

Stones are the first family because the house colour is a stone. Amethyst is one gem with a wide range, from a deep solid to a sheer glass, and moonstone is the white with a blue-violet flash inside it. A stone name promises a depth, which is why the sheer jelly is a Glaze and the pearl is a Moonstone. Gem names are already a nail vocabulary, and the pairing with a lip glaze of the same name comes free.

Hours name the shades that change with light or temperature. Gilded Hour is the gold of the last hour of sun. Twilight Shift is the thermal lacquer that moves from plum to lilac as the hand cools, the way the sky moves at dusk. Velvet Nocturne is a plum crème by day that glows at night. Midnight Muse, the black liner with a drop of blue, belongs to the same family.

Light names the effects. Aurora is the multichrome that shifts from violet to gold, after the northern lights. Nebula is the cat-eye, a single line of light in a deep violet field. Milk Veil is the sheer white that softens the nail like a veil over a window. Gold Vein is the fine gold line, on the eye or from the cupid's bow.

How does a name tell you the finish?

The second word in a name does the work of a finish label. Glaze means a sheer jelly, on the nail and on the lip. Veil means sheer and milky. Shift means the colour changes. Nocturne means velvet, the finish that only shows in low light. Spell means a solid crème with depth. A reader who has learned five words can read the finish from the label without a swatch.

Ten lacquers in nine finishes need names that separate a jelly from a pearl from a velvet at a glance. Colour alone cannot do that, because three of the shades are versions of the same amethyst.

The same word crosses categories. Amethyst Glaze is a lacquer and a lip glaze; Moonstone is a lacquer and a glaze; Aurora is a lacquer and a two-tone glaze. The shared name is the promise that the two match, in hue and in finish.

Why does every shade also have a number?

Every lacquer has a two-digit number, 01 to 10, printed with the name. The number fixes the shade's place in the edition, in the order the house tells its story: the solid amethyst first, the sheer glass second, the neutral third, the two magnetic finishes fourth and fifth, the gold sixth, the red seventh, the milky base eighth, and the two lacquers that change ninth and tenth.

Numbers also survive translation. A Dutch reader and an English reader ask for the same 04. The name can change register between languages; the number cannot. That is one reason Chanel and Gucci number their shades, and the reason the house does the same.

The care products and tools use letters in place of numbers: B for the base, T for the top coat, O for the oil, M for the magnet. Letters mark them as the fixed parts of every manicure, outside the numbered colour sequence that will grow with each edition.

Why is the red called Rouge Anaïs?

Every house has one red with the house name on it. Hermès has Rouge H, Dior has 999 Rouge, Christian Louboutin has Rouge Louboutin. The red is the one shade a house is expected to get right, and putting the name on it is a way of standing behind it.

Rouge Anaïs is a cool cherry with a blue heart, so it suits warm and cool skin alike, and it is the most pigmented crème in the edition. It is number 07. The name breaks the three-family rule on purpose: the red is the exception, in the same way that 999 is the exception in Dior's numbering.

How do we name a new shade?

The naming rules, in the order they are applied:

1. Colour first. The shade is mixed and swatched before any name is discussed, so the name describes a real colour and not a plan.
2. Finish second. The finish decides the second word: Glaze, Veil, Shift, Nocturne or Spell.
3. Family third. The name is placed in stones, hours or light. A shade that fits none of the three is not made.
4. Two words, one image. The name must read in English and in Dutch without translation, and it must be sayable out loud in a shop.
5. No puns, no people, no places. Those belong to other houses and their systems.
6. Number last. The shade takes the next number in the sequence, after the ten of the Amethyst Edit.

The same rules apply to a glaze or a liner made to match a lacquer. It takes the lacquer's name, so the pair reads as one decision. Liners that stand alone are named by their job: Plum Line, Cola Line, Bare Line.