This article was originally published in the American Salon Lookbook, October 2025.
Shana Eichenberg began posting swatches of outdated nail polish to social media as a way to document her fascination with nail art history and the culture surrounding it.
She didn’t do that much to promote it. “A lot of people think so strategically about social media, and I just don’t,” Eichenberg says. Even so, she started racking up followers to her @Vintage_Dusties channels on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram right out of the gate.
Two years later, they’ve grown to nearly a million and her metrics are an influencer’s dream, putting her in the enviable top 2% on both YouTube and TikTok.
The retro nail polish Eichenberg features in her content is presumably the star. Yet for many fans, it’s become a supporting role in an ensemble cast of characters that also include Eichenberg’s soothing voice, short-point nails, dry wit, Seche Restore polish thinner, laboratory vortex mixer, musical deep cuts, and three cats.
Now people feel like they know her, even though there’s one element Eichenberg has never included and most likely never will: Her face.
“I grapple with being perceived,” she says, “which is why I don’t show my face.”
TikTok’s most reluctant influencer recently spoke to American Salon about her unlikely rise to parasocial fame.
Pivoting as a Superpower
Becoming a beauty content creator was not a goal while Shana Eichenberg was putting herself through college as an archaeology major. Nor was it after she graduated and opened a body-care shop in her Pennsylvania hometown.
Eichenberg had a knack for business, marketing, and the alchemy of crafting soaps and shampoos lush enough to be sold through major retailers such as Urban Outfitters.
Those aspects of entrepreneurship came naturally, though acting as the face of her brand did not. “I’m not a big people person, so it was it was a challenge,” says Eichenberg, 35, a self-described socially anxious introvert.
Then came COVID. Eichenberg let go of her business, bought a century-old “run-down but once grand home” with her husband, and threw herself into home renovations. “As the house became a bit more done, I thought: now what? ”
She zeroed in on a longtime hobby: her meticulously catalogued vintage nail polish collection, which Eichenberg considers a cross between artifact history and women’s history. She had only shared it publicly on niche Reddit forums, but in 2021 she took it to Instagram, posting color swatches of 80s- and 90s-era Essie, OPI, and Sinful polishes.
“I would fix those polishes, though they were never really that dried out,” she recalls. “Then I found 1953 Dura-Gloss Shell Pastels, and they had this syrup at the bottom.
“I thought, I bet I can make this work again. So I did.”
With no available guide on how to revive seriously dried-up nail lacquer, Eichenberg taught herself. “I just YOLOed, I guess. I just went for it. I’m intuitive with physical things,” she says.
To re-liquefy the dessicated pigments, Eichenberg tried Seche Restore polish thinner which contains tolulene, a solvent found in pre-1990s lacquers.
And it worked: Eichenberg pulled off her first restoration triumph in bringing the Dura-Gloss polishes back to their vibrant mid-century glory. It was the first time in generations the glossy, rich pastels saw the light of day, much less on someone’s nails.
“I wish I’d filmed it,” Eichenberg says now. “But I wasn’t creating content back then.”
Vintage Dusties Finds Her Voice
Video creation would begin in September 2023, after fellow beauty historian and influencer Erin Parsons succeeded in convincing Eichenberg to take her Instagram content to a wider audience.
She joined TikTok as Vintage Dusties, a moniker adopted from an insider term among vintage collectors. “When you go looking for vintage nail polish it’s called ‘dusty hunting,’” Eichenberg says. “’Dusty’ refers to older nail supply stores with older inventory. But to me, Dusties refers to dusty little bottles themselves.”
Her video content debuted with old polishes swatched on Eichenberg’s own “very thin nails,” protected from outdated ingredients by clear acrylene overlays. Their unorthodox shape — short, sharp points big in the 1930s — have elicited rude comments from the get-go.
Eichenberg takes the barbs in stride. “If you happen to hate it, by all means leave a shady comment!” she joked during one voiceover. “The algorithm will just continue to serve these nails to more viewers.”
And curiously, despite the attention her nails draw, they have yet to get her recognized in real life. “I guess I just don’t get that close to people.”
Vintage Dusties’ earliest videos are set to music and robotic AI narration over footage of nail color swatches. It found an audience early, and within two months had met TikTok’s conditions for monetization.
Then Eichenberg started filming polish restorations, which required her to conquer her social anxiety to narrate the process.
Crouched in the shower for acoustics, trying to control the trembling, she recorded her first voiceover. “I hated my voice,” Eichenberg says. “I thought I sounded shy and meek.”
Her followers had a much different take. Eichenberg’s well-modulated voice is serene and fluid, her consonants crisp, her calming cadence a study in ASMR. Today, the fact that people tune in for her voiceovers is among the biggest surprises of Eichenberg’s unlikely odyssey as a beauty influencer.
“At first, I was getting comments saying: this put me to sleep. And I was like, damn, I guess I’m boring!” she says. “I didn’t realize people meant it as a compliment. They find it relaxing.”
There’s a Lot of History in Nail Polish
Fans come to Vintage Dusties for the nail polish. They stay for the way Eichenberg reveals backstories over sped-up footage of the lab vortex whirling life into old lacquers.
She began incorporating thoughtful looks at retro nail polish ads and the tales they tell of their time. Then came the same with packaging — identifying materials used at various points in history; waxing poetic over fanciful details on bottles and brush wands that made them worthy of glamorous vanities.
There are stories of long-forgotten nail trends, of iconic brands and polish colors that made beauty history, of big mani moments in movies and pop culture. Eichenberg takes viewers along on quests for drugstore dupes of obsolete polishes, and records footage while unboxing her vintage hauls.
She explains how some of the most fabulous retro lacquers — super glossy; amazing color saturation; dazzling flashes, shimmers, and shifts — get their gorgeousness from ingredients too problematic to use in today’s formulas.
And their names! Burnt Bridges. Hot Strawberry. Grinch. Fatal Apple. Bikini So Teeny. Frosted Pineapple Yum-Yum.
As Eichenberg’s confidence grew, she started breaking the fourth wall to include tidbits of her personal life: home renovation projects, self-deprecating anecdotes, the occasional risqué double entendre, and appearances by cats Mischa, Umber, and Eubie. She’ll sing, speak Spanish, quote Shakespeare.
“As I’m putting myself out of my comfort zone more and more,” she says, “I’m becoming a little more comfortable in the discomfort.”
Today, her collection tops 10K bottles dating back to the 1920s. And while Eichenberg is always looking out for first-gen Urban Decay and true antique polishes— plus the one 1953 Dura-Gloss Shell Pastel she doesn’t have (in white) — she won’t elaborate on what specific dusties she has her eye on.
“If you tell people what you’re looking for, they’re gonna put it on their eBay alerts and beat you to it.”
The Fine Print of Internet Fame
Every time Vintage Dusties posts a new video with Eichenberg’s soothing voice intoning “Let’s revive and swatch …” enthusiastic comments start popping up in seconds.
NEEED a dupe of this. … Everyone be quiet, my show is on … OMG, my mother LOVED this polish! … I’M SAT, I’M COMFORTABLE, I’M READYYY … Grabbing a snack and settling in …
Down in the comments, Dusties fans bask in nostalgia and share memories. They say Eichenberg has inspired them to dig through old Caboodles bins for dried-out favorites and try their own hand at restoration, or to go “dusty hunting” themselves.
And while Eichenberg is genuinely delighted about that, there are downsides to racking up a large, responsive fan base fairly quickly.
For one: it ’s created more demand for discontinued nail polish, inflating prices and shrinking availability. “More people are buying up the vintage polish! I know it’s because of me,” Eichenberg says ruefully, “so I can’t complain about it too much.”
For another: it’s one thing to restore dried-out nail polish in your finished basement when you know the risks. It’s another to show highlight reels of the process to people who might decide they want to try it themselves.
Eichenberg often discusses the toxic ingredients found in old formulas and the precautions she takes to avoid them. Though followers beg her to post a tutorial on how to apply her protective nail overlays, she won’t. “I’d rather leave that to the people who are licensed,” she says. “I’m not a nail educator.”
Eichenberg can handle the competition for old nail polish. She can handle the responsibility that comes with educating her audience.
But there’s one aspect of influencer life she’ll never get used to: Parasocial fixations. Especially when people initiate real- world contact.
It’s happened to her, and it happens a lot to fellow influencers. Eichenberg’s distress over it bubbled to the fore when a top TikTok creator, animal rescuer Mikayla Raines, took her own life after being bullied and harassed online and off.
“It really struck a nerve with me,” and made her consider dialing down her online presence, Eichenberg says. “There have been instances where I’ve had to lay a boundary and people get mad about it,” she says. “But I need my boundaries. And I wonder, when is the shoe gonna drop?
“I’ll do this as long as I’m enjoying it,” she says. “And if there comes a day when things get weird …” Her voice trails off. “I have had some weirdnesses.”
One possibility is to withdraw from TikTok altogether and post Dusties content to YouTube alone. “People don’t get a mob mentality there as much as they do on TikTok,” Eichenberg explains.
Her views on YouTube are in the millions, though she’s put little effort into it. “On YouTube I am so non-serious,” she says. “I just upload in vertical. I don’t even do the thumbnail. And they’re still clicking on it! I don’t know why it’s working.”
Life Beyond Dusties
When Vintage Dusties marked its two-year TikTok anniversary, Eichenberg got honest with her fans about the reality of what many would consider the ultimate dream job.
During a long restoration of an especially gnarly 1970s bottle of Colorama, she used the sped-up periods mixing pigment and thinner to drop a few truth bombs. For one: being a top 2% TikTok creator doesn’t necessarily land you sponsorships or make you rich.
“I’m not looking to become the sort of influencer type who wants to buy Birkin bags,” she explained, as the bottle of baby-pink lacquer shook around on the vortex.
“But it would be really nice to rewire my house and eventually remodel my kitchen. Getting paid for views alone isn’t going to cover that stuff … Yes, I can pay my bills and sustain my current lifestyle, but am I getting paid a wage high enough to have stalkers?
“I don’t think so.”
While Eichenberg has reassured her audience she isn’t going anywhere just yet, new chapters remain at the forefront of her mind. “I very much enjoy what I’m doing,” she says, “but I also want to do bigger things.”
She’s got enough dusty old bottles to create video content for the next 30 years, but allows she probably won’t. She plans to eventually donate portions of her collection to curators who would value their place in history and her diligence as an archivist.
In fact, Eichenberg would be perfectly happy quietly going offline to do “something research-based,” and blissfully dive down history’s rabbit holes with no audience at all.
“If this goes tits up, I’ll just do something in archiving or whatever,” she says candidly, adding the understatement of the century: “I’m good at pivoting.”