Would you spend $250 on a bottle of OLD nail polish? The discontinued shades commanding prices over TEN TIMES their original value



Rare, discontinued nail polishes are commanding prices up to ten times their original value on eBay.

Colors such as Essie’s Starry Starry Night and Clarins’s 230 are selling for up to $250 on the auction site, to nail polish-obsessives who call themselves lemmings.

Danielle Frazier, a 28-year-old artist from Brooklyn told The New York Times that the appeal in searching for old polish is its ‘treasure-hunt feeling. It’s got a lottery kind of effect.’

In demand: Essie's Starry Starry night is so revered by nail polish obsessives known as 'lemmings' that it has recently sold for $250 on eBay

Sparkly sky: Lemmings search eBay for Starry Starry Night, but the color is so rare that it is not listed on the site at present

A bottle of Starry Starry Night (known as SSN to lemming bloggers) recently sold on eBay for $250, according to the paper.



Currently, it does not appear that more bottles of the shade are available through the online auction site.



The polish - navy with flecks of silver glitter - holds such meaning among lemmings that pendants and earrings painted with the sparkly varnish are now being sold on Etsy.

The blogger behind Vintage Seams & Things, who received a bottle as a gift, believes Starry Starry Night is worth every penny. She wrote: ‘This polish is absolutely worth the hype. The sparkle in person is one that is remarkable.’



The aforementioned blogger writes of the shade: ‘This polish is absolutely worth the hype. The sparkle in person is one that is remarkable.’



While slightly less rare, Clarins’s 230 polish - an irridescent formula that changes from burgundy to green to gold to orange in the light – is still in high-demand, despite having been discontinued in 2008.

The shade is so beloved that lemmings have nicknamed it ‘Unicorn Pee’ or ‘UP’ for short.

Bottles that have never been opened are currently selling on eBay for up to $157 dollars, while those that have been lightly used are selling for $99.

Rare goods: Clarins's 230 has been discontinued since 2008, making it so elusive that bloggers have nick named it 'unicorn pee'

Tough find: Clarins's 230 color nail polish is currently selling for $157 on eBay, spawning countless loving reviews from bloggers

But despite the demand for shade 230, a spokesperson for Clarins told MailOnline that it is currently not scheduled for a reissue.

This has not thwarted nail polish bloggers from lavishing the Clarins hue with praise. One such reviewer, who writes at Crystol’s Crazy Combos, wrote that ‘230 has the most beautiful shimmers I have ever seen! It's like tiny little fire flecks that fight each other over which color to shine!!

‘It really is every color of the rainbow!! And so much better than regular shimmer polish. I have no idea what is used to give this polish such a unique finish!’ [sic]



A blogger for Fashion Polish attested that 230’s ‘complexity resides in the fact that depending on the angle the lighting hits it, you will see it come to life before your own eyes : a base color burgundy in the center and blue on the edges and shimmer particles metamorphosing from toxic grass green to yellow, orange and red.’



This is not to mention countless blog reviews that discuss the merits of various ‘dupes’, or colors by other brands that can be used as duplicates to rare shades like Starry Starry Night or Clarins’s 230.

