Blue
It simply wasn’t her colour. She’d known it all along. But with it being the last unopened bottle in the designer collection Mags had bought her for Christmas… Well, it had nagged at her for weeks, its protest growing increasingly loud. What was the point of having such a luxury if you weren’t going to use it? Leaving it untouched felt a bit like betrayal; Mags had little enough money as it was, so for her to buy that large set as a present was saying something - copy-cat branding notwithstanding.
Having never been stressed since it left the factory (somewhere abroad, that’s for sure, as it couldn’t have been an English colour) it took her a while to loosen the stiff cap and remove the applicator from the fluid; doing so immediately confirmed it was not a shade for her. She had nothing against blue, of course. If you were to scan her wardrobe you’d find a few blue things: a long flouncy skirt which really suited her, but which she’d refused to wear since it had been overtaken by fashion; the ribbed jumper - nowadays a size too small - that accentuated all her curves and not merely those she would want to emphasise; the skimpy bikini which had landed her in a spot of bother when she had donned it on holiday in Magaluf that time… In spite of its somewhat checkered history however, the latter remained the kind of thing you still packed when you went on holiday - just in case you woke up one day in the mood to take a risk or two.
Once the lid was off the varnish she felt committed, so applied a thin coat of the liquid to the nail of the little finger of her left hand. Extending her arm, she looked at the freshly decorated digit from as great a distance as possible to see if doing so might alter her perception of the colour, to see if there was any chance the varnish would whisper - rather than shout - ‘blue’. Having steeled herself to instantly remove the gloss when it proved too offensive, she was slightly surprised to find herself pushing on, glazing a second finger and then the final three in sequence until all on her left hand were decorated. She had blown on each in turn, then once again held her hand as far away as she could. “It’s definitely blue”, she said to herself, an air of resignation mixed with a sliver of surprise; she had never expected to get this far. Switching hands, she began the slightly slower process of varnishing her remaining fingers, doubly cautious because of the way the brush felt awkward in her left hand. Once finished, she placed the bottle on the table in front of her, replaced the applicator inside it, then extended both arms. There could be no doubt that it was very blue.