LOVE YOUR NAILS, JACK

By TAMALA M. EDWARDS

When Wende Zomnir, creative director of the nail-polish company Urban Decay, advertised free manicures at last year's International Fashion Boutique Show in New York City, the lines stretched out the door. Part of the clamor was simply good buzz, with fashion reporters raving over Urban Decay's wild shades, like Asphalt (matte black), Mildew (organic green) and Plague (deep purple). But there was another reason for the long wait. "There were as many men as women" in line, says Zomnir.

With earrings now dangling from the lobes of stockbrokers, bartenders and truck drivers, what's a hip guy to do to distinguish himself? Well, for starters he could paint his fingernails olive, khaki and black. And, apparently, he does. Last year Urban Decay decided to advertise its unisex grungy nail colors--"Does pink make you puke?"--in magazines with male readers, like Spin, Rolling Stone and Interview, instead of in women's magazines. Nationwide, Urban Decay rang up first-year sales of $5 million, at $11 a bottle--a lot of them to guys.

When another company, Hard Candy, launched a male line, Candy Man, in January, Neiman Marcus ordered all it could get--and sold out. Today Candy Man colors like Testosterone (metallic silver), Dog (deep purple) and Oedipus (forest green) are distributed in 120 department stores and 40 men's boutiques nationwide.

Such celebrity hipsters as director Quentin Tarantino, Dennis Rodman and rocker Lenny Kravitz have painted their nails for years, but now nine-year-old boys are showing up at nail-polish parties in Dallas and Los Angeles. High school coaches from Orinda, Calif., to North Stamford, Conn., have ordered dozens of bottles in school colors for football players to wear on game day. "Young people in the 1990s are not as scared about issues of sexual orientation," says Chicago hairdresser James Braun, 20. "The younger crowd thinks it's stupid that only women can wear skirts and nail polish."

Of course, there's still a stigma. A middle-aged Beverly Hills stockbroker paints his toes but only shows his wife, according to Jeanne Chavez, Hard Candy's sales v.p. And Glenn Watamanik, 35, a foreign-currency specialist, wore his electric-blue nails to work at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange--just once. "Younger people thought it was cool," he says. "But the more conservative look at you like you're crazy." Some men reserve nail polish for "let's go out" time--with or without a date. "Women come up to my friend who wears nail polish and have something to say. Like a guy with a dog, he's easy to approach," Zomnir says.

But will the current blip on the sales charts really endure? Zomnir hopes so. "The whole earring thing was considered wild and crazy 10 years ago. Now it's common," she says. But she concedes that men are "not big on maintenance"--we're talking tedium: a trim, a filing, cuticle removal, and then a base coat, two primary coats and a top clear coat, each and every week. On the other hand, she says, "guys can get away with chipped nails more than women."

--By Tamala M. Edwards. Reported by Jacqueline Savaiano/Los Angeles and Mark Shuman/Chicago

With reporting by JACQUELINE SAVAIANO/LOS ANGELES AND MARK SHUMAN/CHICAGO