The Nail Polish That Was Designed to Detect Drugs in a Drink

For many people, getting ready for a night out means choosing an outfit, doing their hair, or painting their nails. But several engineering students at North Carolina State University once imagined a nail polish that could do something far more serious than simply add color.

It could potentially help someone determine whether their drink had been tampered with.

The idea became known as Undercover Colors, a project created by four NC State engineering students: Ankesh Madan, Stephen Gray, Tasso Von Windheim, and Tyler Confrey-Maloney. Their goal was to develop a discreet way for people to check a beverage for certain substances associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault.

The concept was strikingly simple.

Instead of carrying a separate testing device, a person could wear the special polish on a fingernail and briefly place that nail into a drink. If certain targeted substances were present, the polish was designed to produce a visible color change.

It sounded almost futuristic: a familiar beauty product transformed into a miniature chemical detector.

And when the story appeared online in 2014, the concept spread rapidly.

But the story of Undercover Colors is more complicated—and ultimately more interesting—than the viral image of a bottle of “anti-date-rape nail polish.” The nail polish concept never became the commercial product many people assumed it would. The team eventually moved toward a different type of technology, developing a small drink-testing device known as the SipChip.

That evolution reveals an important lesson about innovation: sometimes the first idea captures the world's imagination, while a different version of the technology becomes the practical solution.

An idea born from a serious problem

The students did not begin by trying to reinvent nail polish.

According to NC State's College of Engineering, the four students were looking for a way to address drug-facilitated sexual assault. They wanted to explore prevention rather than simply focusing on what happens after an assault occurs.

Their question was straightforward: Could technology give someone a quick and discreet way to check a drink before taking the first sip?

The answer they explored was Undercover Colors.

The project began as a senior design project in NC State's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The students wanted to create something that could fit naturally into everyday life rather than requiring users to carry specialized laboratory equipment.

That design philosophy was central to the idea.

A conventional test kit might require someone to take it out of a bag, open packaging, collect a sample, and perform a test in front of other people. The students believed that integrating the testing mechanism into something people already used could make the process more convenient and less conspicuous.

Nail polish seemed like an unusual but logical candidate.

It was small.

It was portable.

It could be worn all evening.

And, perhaps most importantly, it did not immediately look like a safety device.

The proposed system would work through a chemical reaction. The specially formulated coating would contain compounds intended to interact with particular substances. A visible change in color would serve as a warning that the drink might contain one of those substances.

The concept was not designed to prove that a drink was universally “safe.” Rather, it was intended as an additional screening tool for specific substances.

That distinction would become increasingly important as the project developed.

Why the concept attracted so much attention

The first reports about Undercover Colors appeared at a time when the idea of technology being incorporated into everyday personal products was becoming increasingly popular.

The students' proposal stood out because it was so easy to understand.

You did not need to understand chemistry to grasp the basic concept:

Paint your nails. Dip one into your drink. Watch for a reaction.

The Washington Post reported in 2014 that the students were developing a nail polish intended to change color in the presence of substances including Rohypnol, Xanax and GHB.

The story was quickly picked up by major media outlets and circulated widely on social media.

For the students, the sudden attention was overwhelming.

NC State later described how the project went from a university engineering assignment to a company receiving international attention in a remarkably short period of time. The team had won the university's LuLu eGames entrepreneurship competition in 2014 and received $13,000 toward developing the idea. They also gained exposure to potential investors.

The university reported that the students were working extremely long hours while attempting to develop the technology. They spent nights in the library and continued working on the project alongside their academic responsibilities.

The viral attention also brought something more meaningful than publicity: messages from sexual-assault survivors and people who believed the technology could potentially help others.

For the young engineers, those reactions reinforced the idea that they were working on something people genuinely cared about.

But public excitement and scientific development are two very different things.

A compelling prototype still has to work reliably.

And turning an interesting chemical reaction into a consumer product is far more difficult than demonstrating that the reaction can happen under controlled conditions.

The challenge of turning chemistry into nail polish

The viral version of the story made Undercover Colors sound almost effortless.