Hitting the market in 2011, NCLA founders Elin Dannerstedt and Daniel Roescheisen shook up the world of nail art with their unique nail wraps. After inspiring countless women (and men!) around the globe with their easy-to-use and fashionable designs, they decided to expand to nail lacquers as well. It’s lucky for us they did, as the NLCA Nail Lacquers are free from the most harmful chemicals that many nail lacquers on the market contain.

Elin refers to their chemical-free formula as the 5 Free, meaning that their nail lacquers do not contain formaldehyde, DBP, toluene or formaldehyde resin, and are also vegan. “We actually also just reworked our formula, and managed to eliminate TPHP and Xylene from our lacquers as well,” adds Daniel, co-founder of the brand.

NCLA, next to their uniquely environmentally friendly formula, aims to stand out from other nail-art brands with their philosophy as well.
Elin: “I like to describe our brand and our philosophy as ‘beauty-fashion-California’. We try to actively blend a beauty product with a sense of high fashion, which LA is very much known for.”
Daniel: “We definitely try to be unique in what we do and the products we create. Our inspiration comes from all sorts of things like art, music, modern culture, and then we just try to put it all together in our designs.”

Elin and Daniel explain that they are longtime friends, having met 8 years ago by chance. Working together to create NCLA, they had to learn everything about running a business from scratch.
Elin: “I noticed that the world of nail polishes and nail art had a huge gap; nail wraps were virtually non-existent back in 2010. So, Daniel and I decided to try to find an affordable way to manufacture and create easy to use products. Other brands only offered very expensive products, or you had to go to a salon to get any kind of nail-art done, so I figured: ‘We can do better.’”
Daniel: “It really was all just coincidence, one of those cases where something falls into your lap, you see an opportunity and you run with it.”

Young CEOs taking over the world, one nail at the time

And run with it they did: both of the young founders (Elin and Daniel are in their early ‘30’s) put a tremendous amount of work into their company. Elin gets up at 4.45 every morning, and is ready to start her workday by 7, already having been to the gym.
Elin: “I spend a lot of time answering emails and attending creative meetings, but I also still like to get my hands dirty by being involved in the production process for instance. In addition, I’m involved with design and social media. After the busy days that I’m used to having, I hit the sack early, at around 10 p.m. already.”
Daniel: “Sometimes it’s hard to remember what I did in the morning, because every day is pretty busy and different. I’m mostly involved with overseeing product development, coming up with new ideas, and in addition to that I do marketing, talk to our distributors, and work on contracts.”
Their hard work has definitely paid off, with NCLA being distributed in 29 countries, and having a steady staff of 9-13 in the LA office.

‘Beauty-fashion-California’ turned out to be right on the mark, as the NCLA nail wraps quickly became the ‘New Big Thing’ when it came to nail art, appealing to nail aficionadas and fashionistas everywhere. It wasn’t all smooth sailing from the get-go, though.
Elin: “Starting any company is so much hard work, you have to put in incredible amounts of time and effort to even get things going. In our world, you’re going against 500mil companies that monopolize the industry, which makes it very hard to be different in the first place, to try and launch something new. I strongly believe that our philosophy, combined with our love for the environment, is what convinced our customers to chose NCLA above any other brand.”
Daniel: “Our plan was always to create something unique that excites people, something that hasn’t been done before. In the beginning, we worked on some really cool collaborations with different artists. We created lines such as NCLA for Beyoncé, and NCLA loves Hello Kitty. We then decided to launch the lacquers as the next product category. In my opinion, it’s important for every new brand to do something unique. We also took a long time to perfect our formula – it’s really important to us that our products are as close to perfect as possible before putting them on the market.”

On stunning hands, and how to maintain them

The flashy nail wrap designs are inspired by anything and everything that crosses the two founders’ path.
Elin: “It can be day to day life, a certain person or fashion designer, old fashion magazines, fashion shows – you name it, and we turned it into a nail wrap design.”
Daniel: “I tend to get inspired by music and art and books, and a somewhat healthy lifestyle. My biggest inspirations in life are nature and the universe.”

Achieving a stunning nail look doesn’t start with choosing a flashy nail wrap, or a gorgeous nail lacquer however.
Elin: “You use your hands more than any other part of your body during a day, and they sure can give away your age. Next to our nail wraps and lacquers, we also offer a range of nourishing products for the hands and nails. But the main thing you can do to keep your hands looking gorgeous is to regularly scrub them, and then to use moisturizer and cuticle oil before applying any kind of lacquer or wrap.”
Daniel: “As a guy, I recommend using hand cream on a daily base. Just a simple thing like keeping your hands hydrated and nourished improves the way they look by miles. In addition, well-nourished hands enhance the effect of whichever high-fashion look you’d like pull off with our nail wraps and lacquers.”

Have you had a chance to try out NCLA’s nail wraps yet? If not, you’re in luck; Amazingy Magazine is giving away 3 to 3 lucky readers, those all include one NCLA nailwrap, one NCLA nailpolish and one ILIA Lipgloss. All you need to do is add a comment, telling us for what special event you’d like to use one of the awesome NCLA designs for.

Everybody over the age of 18 can enter one time. The winner will be notified per email. Exchanging for cash is not allowed. We will not use your info for anything else than this post.
Employees of Amazingy can not enter the raffle.

Closing date is 06.5.2016 at 23:59h. Good luck!

Interview: Csilla Liptai