Episode 007 – Changing the Way We Think About Nail Care with Bare Hands

Today on The Heart-led Brand Podcast, we’re chatting with Suzanne Shade of Bare Hands!

Bare Hands is here to change the way we think and feel about nail care. With their hero product, The Dry Gloss Manicure, they have created a truly natural and sustainable alternative to the tools and ingredients of traditional salon manicures. Giving us the methods to embrace a natural nail look that’s shiny and nourished with the same ingredients you would find in high-end organic skincare.

Episode Highlights:

Question to help you discover your big business idea:

What does the world need? What is sort of pressing right now? And what do you feel really compelled to solve in terms of social responsibility, sustainability.
What am I good at? What skills can I contribute to that?
Is there anything new in this space that I can explore? How can you make sure that you're not sort of in a sea of other people who are doing the same thing.

Her biggest challenge to getting Bare Hands off the ground:

“I launched like right as Covid was starting in 2020. And the things that have happened in the business landscape since then, sort of this cascade effect of supply chain, rising costs. the Apple privacy transition in ‘21 completely changed the landscape of digital advertising.

So my business plan built in 2019 was actually built for a D2C landscape that in many ways no longer exists in the same way. So to me, that's actually been my biggest challenge is sort of how to adapt and just kind of tool the business in a way that suits my more conservative way of going and my slower way of going.

Another big challenge actually is how this sits within the beauty press. And the more I learn about the business of editorial and how many intertwining webs of influence and money are involved in editorials brands, professionals, dermatologists, things like that. It's very kind of intertwined to benefit a lot of the bigger businesses. So I'm definitely in a stage right now where I'm trying to adapt and see where I fit within that landscape. […] Getting people in the press to talk about kind of a revolution in nail care has been a lot more challenging than I thought it would.”

On her hopes for the future of nail care:

“One tipping point indicator that I think this is gonna be a few years down the road is that when people go to key occasions in their lives. Like right now it's graduations. A lot of people are going out and celebrating things and getting dressed up. And I've had a number of people who are like, “Hey, I feel comfortable going natural with my nails. But when I show up at graduation, I've gotta have that set of nails. I've gotta do it. I can't NOT do it.” And you know, a lot of that is also ingrained in like family patterns where like grandma will show up and be like, “Hey, we're gonna go to the salon and everybody's getting their nails done.”

But it's that piece of it where you're like, okay, let's break down why that is? Why do we feel the need to do that? […] So five years down the road when somebody says, “Hey, I'm going to graduation, but I'm not getting my nails done, and I'm totally okay with it.” Maybe doing a dry loss manicure and having my nails like just shined and I've got a couple of pretty rings on. When people say that to me in the future, I'm gonna be happy about it.”

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Shop their Dry Gloss Manicure Kit: barehands.com