pokeberry

From the OPI Strawberry Margarita nail polish she wore to her Refinery29 interview to the berry-colored shades she said she used to derive from poisonous pokeberry plants in her youth, which she reportedly used as a lip stain and nail tint.

“Pokeberry ink was most famously used by Civil War soldiers to write love notes.”

“I have a garbage bag full of pokeweed in my studio! I swear, I just wrote on my calendar, ‘Learn how to make pokeberry dye.’

We’re introduced to Benjamin Lay, who in 1738 exhorted his fellow Quakers to renounce slavery in a dramatic speech involving a hollowed-out Bible and a pig’s bladder filled with crimson pokeberry juice.

It was as red as pokeberry juice and anything that color was supposed to be healthy.