Of the 31 solvent systems used, 8 of them were able to resolve components of the extracted fingernail enamel sample. Of these eight, three produced good spot definition and a wide range of hRf values for the various components of the extracted sample of the nail enamels. The remaining solvent systems provided little or no separation of the enamel components. In most cases, it was difficult to differentiate samples of a particular color group on the basis of a chromatographic profile, because no significant variations were observed in hRf values. This is probably because of the use of the same type of coloring materials in the manufacturing of fingernail enamels. Forty-nine samples of fingernail enamel were obtained from the local market. The smears of these enamels were prepared by applying the enamels once on properly washed glass slides. A 1 square ml stained area from a slide was scraped off with a clean sharp needle into three test tubes; one contained dimethyl formamide, another contained methanol, and the third contained acetone. They were stored overnight. The test tube that contained dimethyl formamide showed maximum extraction of the dye from the nail enamel; therefore, all the samples were extracted using dimethyl formamide. The test tube was centrifuged, and the analysis was performed with colored supernatant fluid. Using capillary tubes, samples of nail enamels were spotted on coated silica gel-G plates. The article describes in detail how the hRf value of each spot was calculated. Thirty-one solvent systems were used in attempting to characterize the nail enamels. 1 table and 5 references