Télle Moi was born out of personal frustration…By Natel Allen
I was about to start a new job and to me that always justifies a new nail polish. I remember trying to find a simple brown nude nail polish that would suit my skin tone – I didn’t want to stand out too much on my first day, so I thought nude would be the safest option. I searched through a range of high street brands that usually sell polish and struggled to find a flattering nude nail polish that wasn’t just a lighter or darker shade of pink. I’d always relied heavily on purchasing nail polish from mainstream stores and I was completely oblivious to the indie nail polish community at the time.
I remember coming home so annoyed! So, I started to research on Google to see if it was possible to make your own nail polish. After locating a few reputable suppliers and going through lots of trial and error, I created 4 beautiful shimmer nude polishes. I was so surprised by how pretty they came out, I just felt like I hadn’t seen these colours anywhere before.
‘We specialise in nude nail polishes for darker skin tones.’
The name Télle Moi derives from the phrase ‘tel moi’ in French which can be translated to ‘Like Me’ as I wanted everyone to be able to see colours that represent themselves.
The most difficult part has been trying to establish ourselves in a very congested market – ultimately you can buy nail polish in most places. I’ve worked really hard to try and perfect the formula and colours that you can’t always find in the store. Marketing and branding has also been very key in this process – our main USP is the range of nudes we offer. Instead of using different shades of pink, we use yellow and red undertones to try and represent skin colours more fairly. Also the formula is so important to me, I want the polishes to have a creamy texture so I try to make them as pigmented as possible.
We will be launching a gel nude polish line very soon! We are currently just online, but in the long term I would love to have a nail salon so I could expose Télle Moi to those that get their nails done in nail shops.