ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050054
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY GOTTSCHALK KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Men - are you ready for nail polish?
Not that clear coat you sometimes get at the end of a manicure, but serious nail polish with dark, metallic colors that you notice, and names like Dog for purple, Oedipus for forest green, Testosterone for a shade described as ``steel gun'' and Libido - a teal coloration just made for San Jose Sharks fans.
Candy Man is the name of this first line of nail polish aimed specifically at men. Priced at $12 a bottle for 0.45 oz. in a choice of seven shades, it's expected to hit cosmetics counters soon.
``I don't know if Mr. Wall Street will be wearing it,'' admits creator Dineh Mohajer. ``I don't think he'll put Gigolo [black] on for work, but who knows what the night may bring?''
Tom Julian, a men's fashion trend analyst for McFallon Elligott, a marketing company, says, ``We've had acceptance of tattooing and ear piercing, so colored fingernails and toenails goes right along with that."
But ``will Revlon embrace it in a big way? Probably not. It's for a small segment of the urban population - and it does exist - but I don't envision guys going down to the corner drug store and saying, `I'll buy a new shade of nail polish for tonight.'''
Still, Mohajer thinks there's a market, and her sense of the cosmetics marketplace is legendary - at the age of 24.
Unable to find a baby-blue shade of polish to match her new shoes in 1995, Mohajer mixed her own in her Beverly Hills home. People noticed, asked to buy it and finally she heeded the advice to market it from her sister Pooneh, now her business partner. Sales for 1996 were $10 million and spawned copycat shades from other manufacturers following her lead. She's not predicting a similar explosion for Candy Man, but she won't be surprised if it generates a million or so its first year.
``Candy Man came about because we've had such interest from men as well as women. We were to the point where men were stealing their girlfriends' bottles and putting it on in the bathroom,'' Mohajer says.
Hard Candy's Bubble Gum, Trailer Trash and Sky colors are marketed to women, and famous fans include Alicia Silverstone, Lisa Marie Presley, Madonna and Cher. But Mohajer can easily tick off a list of well-known men who gladly paint their nails with it. Lenny Kravitz, Quentin Tarantino, Dennis Rodman, Antonio Banderas and Sean Lennon, as well as members of rock bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage are among the enamel-enamored men she expects to buy Candy Man.
``There's something very sexy about a man wearing nail polish, and it doesn't compromise his sexuality. It's a hip, fashionable thing to do. It's not caught up in machoness. It's more about fashion, style, fun and sexiness,'' she says.
Naturally, Mohajer's boyfriend, musician and business partner Ben Einstein, wears it. ``I think he's got Gigolo on,'' she says.
While the Nordstrom department store chain is considered by some as more conservative than cutting edge, cosmetics counter sales associates there say plenty of men now peruse the Hard Candy displays to select just the right shade they want.
Store executives say they are looking forward to stocking Candy Man. ``We will have it as soon as it's available,'' says Jennifer Drubner, who handles Nordstrom's Northern California media relations. ``We've had so much success with the Hard Candy nail polish, it's flying out of the stores.''
Candy Man will be packaged in the same clear bottles as Hard Candy, but caps will be silver instead of white and in place of the heart logo will be the male sex symbol. Continuing the Hard Candy tradition, each bottle will have a plastic jelly ring on it.
Also continuing: offbeat names.
``We sit around and brainstorm,'' Mohajer says. ``They're fun and playful and sexy names. It's nail polish for men, how serious are the names going to be?''
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB