Into the Black : Men on the Edge Are Adding a Little Polish

Think of it as putting the “man” in “manicure.”

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and the former Mr. Shannen Doherty--Ashley Hamilton--are joining club kids and rock musicians in sporting chipped nail polish, preferably black.

Does the black give them that rugged “I-dropped-my-hammer-on-every-finger-and-now-they’ve-turned-dark” look?

“It looked a little sinister,” says Colleen Creighton, stylist for Details magazine, which features Tarantino and Hamilton. “And in Hollywood, there’s a certain group of young men who like crossing the gender line a little. They like to play on the edge.”

And a tip on the tips: “They like it chipped,” says Creighton, who started painting men’s nails two years ago. “For the surf punk shoot, I applied the black and then immediately scraped it off.”

After all, nails polished or not, boys will be boys.