How Nails.INC went from high street nail bars to global retail brand

The head office of Nails.INC in Mayfair, London, is filled to the brim with cosmetics. Boxes of nail varnishes, gels and countless other products are stacked high as step onto their floor of the building.

This is where I met Thea Green, the founder of Nails.INC and one of the UK's most successful entrepreneurs in the beauty and self-care space. Although she began her career in journalism, she spotted a gap in the fashion market back in the late 1990s and she seized the opportunity.

During trips to New York, she noticed the rise of nail bars offering quick, convenient appointments. In the UK at that time, visiting a nail specialist was still something typically reserved for special occasions such as weddings.

Green brought the concept to the British high street during the height of the dot-com boom, as coffee shops were also beginning their expansion. What started as simple nail bars soon evolved into standout concessions in department stores such as Fenwick and Selfridges.

Alongside this, she was steadily developing her own range of nail products for customers to buy. Today, Nails.INC is entirely a retail business, having closed its final nail bar earlier this year.

Products such as nail polish and varnish have made Nails.INC a recognisable UK brand in the US, where it now generates nearly half its $40m revenues. Much of that visibility has come from attention-grabbing collaborations, creating nail products themed around food brands including Mangum ice creams, McDonald’s burgers, Fruit Loop breakfast cereals and Velveeta cheese.

These playful, unexpected partnerships went viral, sparked conversation and secured TV coverage, Green explained.

Last year, Nails.INC was acquired by private equity firm Pacific World Corporation in a reported £30m deal, though Green has stayed on to lead the company she founded.

“For a long time, I was the ‘young girl’ figure of my own business,” says Green, “because there were people much older than me in my business.”

She founded Nail.INC in her 20s and is now 49. “Now I’m the ‘mum’ figure of the business. Most things that go wrong, I’ve seen a version of it before. One of the joys of age is that you don’t stress about anything any more. You don’t sweat the small stuff.”