OPI's Suzi Weiss-Fischmann on How Nail Polishes Get Their Names

OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, via Maria Morri (Flickr)

By Elizabeth Segran 

With colorful names like Glitzerland, Didgeridoo Your Nails, and Blue My Mind, it’s no wonder OPI nail polish is some of the world’s most popular. We’re always fans of a good pun, so we asked artistic director Suzi Weiss-Fischmann to let us in on her team’s creative process.

I love to travel, so from the beginning, we’ve always named our collections after places. Last spring, we focused on Brazil. This fall, it’s Nordic countries.

When we brainstorm, six of us order food that represents that season’s country. We sit for 10 or 12 hours until we come up with a dozen names.

As a running joke, one color in every collection is named after me. In the Nordic Collection, there’s one called Suzi Has a Swede Tooth because I am always on a diet, but in the afternoon I sniff around the office asking if anyone has anything good to eat.

Sometimes a name corresponds with the color. There’s a brown shade this season called Ice-Bergers & Fries.

But other times, honestly, we pick random names just because we like them. One of my favorite names from the current collection is a mint green called My Dogsled Is a Hybrid.

My daughter was watching a televised concert and the audience was packed with young women. I said, “Who is this boy Justin Beaver?” She told me his name was actually Bieber, and I called his manager to collaborate. Soon, our color One Less Lonely Glitter had sold out everywhere.