What’s your favourite nail polish effect? Glitter? Leather look? Date-rape-drug predictor? Er, yep – the latest technology in manicures is a polish that helps identify if your drink has been spiked.
A company called Undercover Colours has invented a nail polish that changes colour when it comes into contact with compounds such as Rohypnol, Xanax and GHB – the drugs often used to facilitate sexual assault.
The idea is you dip your finger in your drink and if there’s something in there that’s not supposed to be, you’ll know about it when your talons suddenly change colour.
'With our nail polish, any woman will be empowered to discreetly ensure her safety by simply stirring her drink with her finger,' the team behind it has explained. 'If her nail polish changes colour, she’ll know that something is wrong.'
The people behind it are four male engineering students from North Caroline State University, who won a competition sponsored by NC State’s Entrepreneurship Initiative to challenge students to design working solutions to real-world problems.
READ MORE: Is This Pocket Date Rape Drug Tester A Genius Or A Terrible Idea?
'All of us have been close to someone who has been through the terrible experience, and we began to focus on finding a way to help prevent the crime,' said Ankesh Madan, one of the creators. 'We wanted to focus on preventive solutions, especially those that could be integrated into products that women already use. And so the idea of creating a nail polish that detects date rape drugs was born.'
Although the product is still in the early stages of market testing, Undercover Colours are hoping it will make it into shelves in the future.
It’s admirable that these guys are taking steps to help cut down the amount of sexual assaults – and it sounds like their hearts are in the right place. But we can’t help feeling that – along with what we wear and how much we drink – that this is another way women are being told that it’s their responsibility to stop them selves being assaulted.
What if you don’t even like wearing nail polish? Have you got to start sporting long red claws just to stop yourself being drugged? And how do you explain to the guy who has just bought you a large red wine why you're awkwardly trying to put your finger in it? Why should we even have to coat our digits in booze on a night out to make sure we aren't bundled into a cab with a potential rapist? What if you forget to paint them? Can’t we even be lazy about our personal grooming without worrying after our personal safety?
It’s great that there’s an option for women who want to use it – and we're sure lots will welcome it. But it's depressing that – once again – the onus is on us to stop ourselves being attacked.
Last week, some male students in America moaned that they were sick of carrying all the responsibility of women not being raped. Because, you know, it’s a real effort not to sexually assault someone. According to one lovely fella, there is now an assumption among female students that they shouldn’t have to protect themselves. 'Do I deserve to have my bike stolen if I leave it unlocked on the quad?,' the charming Chris Herries, 22, told Bloomberg. 'We have to encourage people not to take on undue risk.'
The fact that there are men who still think like this shows that there is still a huge amount to be done in educating young males about rape. The four guys behind Undercover Colours won funding for their idea. But should students be given cash incentives to develop sexual assault prevention products - or we just be educating young men more about sexual assault?
And if the product does make it into production, how will it be marketed? Most advertising works by convincing you really, really need something. In this case, surely that would mean making women feel like they might be attacked if they don't use it. Kind of a downer while you're painting your nails for a night out.
The creators say they don't want to instill any fear. 'Through this nail polish and similar technologies, we hope to make potential perpetrators afraid to spike a woman’s drink because there’s now a risk that they can get caught,' the team says. 'In effect, we want to shift the fear from the victims to the perpetrators.'
But a future where bars and clubs are full of nervous women dipping their digits into a vodka tonic doesn’t sound that much fun to us.
Follow Clare on Twitter @Thorpers
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.