Who invented
nail art, and
what does it cost?

The full narration of the video.

One bottle of nail polish. Price tag: 250,000 dollars. Because floating inside are 267 carats of black diamonds. So who invented nail art? How cheap, and how pricey? Which country does it best?

First, who invented it? Here's the surprise: nobody did. In ancient Egypt, people likely stained their nails orange-red with henna leaves. In China, a Song dynasty writer spelled it out: crush red balsam leaves with a pinch of alum, press it on the nail, and wrap it in cloth overnight.

A few rounds, and the nails turn red as rouge. Bottled polish is only about a hundred years old. In 1932, a small American company made an opaque polish in lots of colors, and it took off fast. Later, a dentist broke a nail and patched it with tooth-filling material. That's how fake nails began.

Then came gel: it hardens under a small lamp, and lasts two or three weeks. So no single person invented it. Many people built it up, bit by bit, over thousands of years. The cheapest? A bottle of polish is about ten yuan, and lasts many coats.

A plain color at a salon is usually a few dozen to a hundred-something yuan. Add designs and little gems, and a thousand isn't unusual. The priciest is that bottle from the start. In 2012, a celebrity said she wore it, and it made the news. But the maker later said that bottle was never opened. It sat in a display case in London.

The bottle in her photo looked more like the brand's 25-dollar version. From ten yuan to over a million, the difference isn't the nail. It's what you put on it. Last: which country is best? Honestly, there's no official ranking. Big competitions crown a different country every year.

But three places keep coming up. Japan set up a nail artists' association in 1985, then a nationwide exam. It's famous for fine detail. Korea used to follow Japan. Now many new styles catch on in Korea first.

And a surprise: in America, about half of nail technicians are Vietnamese American. In 1975, a Hollywood actress visited a refugee camp and had her own manicurist teach twenty Vietnamese women. They trained others, who trained others, until their salons spread across America.

So there's no single best country. Japan wins on detail, Korea on new ideas, Vietnamese Americans on speed and price. If you had to pick, which one? Detail, new, or fast?