Date rape drug detecting nail polish sounds like it could be a good idea. Any tool that could potentially help protect a person from sexual predators is a positive thing. But it looks like this new product is all hype and has no substance.

Four students at North Carolina State University developed Undercover Colors, the “anti date rape” nail polish. The polish was intended to detect common date rape drugs (aka change color when dipped in a drink), but the polish turns out to be a dud. The nail polish can’t detect four of the common drugs used in many date rapes. And even worse, when tested, the nail polish failed to detect the drug it was created to “find.”

After all this information came out, women and men have, understandably, been up in arms about the product. Here are just a few more reasons why Undercover Colors is inevitably useless:

As many women and men have pointed out, the most common date rape drug is alcohol. If a woman or man has too much to drink, they can’t fight off their attacker. Also: Most women, in general, can’t fight off a male attacker even if they haven’t had anything to drink.

How many women would actually wear this polish? I’m betting not many. Even if a woman does wear nail polish regularly, will she actually stop and apply this nail lacquer before heading out for the evening? As this XOVain article points out, a drug detecting line of lip-glosses were released in 2009. That line, while well intentioned, went absolutely nowhere.

And most importantly: The majority of date rapes happen without drugs or alcohol.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: The only way to stop date rape is to teach people not to rape.

Related on EcoSalon

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What Is Date Rape? That Happened

Image: James Lee

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