Hi, I’m Oli!
My love of nail polish started for a surprisingly practical reason: hair dye.
I’ve been dyeing my hair red for a few years, and as much as I love the color, I initially struggled with the staining that showed up on my nails after each time that I washed my hair. So I originally started painting my nails because I needed a way to cover up the staining. But then over time, nail polished turned into a hobby, a creative outlet, and eventually way more tiny bottles of paint than I ever could have imagined owning in my life.
Why I Started Oli Nails
I started my YouTube channel because I was looking for a creative outlet outside of work. I also wanted to make the kind of nail polish content that I could watch while doing my own nails.
When I paint my nails, I love putting on a long video and listening to someone chat: a video that I can settle in with and feel cozy, almost like having a friend there with me.
That’s why my channel is full of longer videos that you can put on to keep you company while you’re doing your own nails. I always love reading comments where viewers say that they laughed along with my jokes and felt like they were experiencing my polish experiment journey in real time!
Taking an Educational Approach
Before Oli Nails, teaching was already a big part of my background, and that experience has had a huge influence on the channel that I’ve created.
I love taking something that I’ve learned through research or experimentation and figuring out how to explain it in a way that’s useful and approachable. Rather than simply showing you a finished manicure or telling you whether or not I like a product, I always like to dig into the why: Why did this technique work? Why does this color combination look different than expected? What can we learn from comparing these products side by side?
Experimenting with nail polish and seeing what I can learn along the way has become a big part of Oli Nails. I hope that my videos inspire you to experiment, too, and to discover new possibilities in the polishes that you already have.
Let’s Go to the Club!
If you’ve watched my videos, you’ve most likely heard me talk about “going to the club.” It started as a running joke about times when a manicure looks particularly sparkly; for example, a glittery orange polish combination could be described as “a pumpkin that’s going to the club.” 🎃 🪩
Over time, “the club” has become a fun way of celebrating the community that has been built within the comments section of Oli Nails videos. As someone who absolutely loves glitter, it always makes me happy to see that yet another nail polish combination appears to be something that’s going to the club, and I love being able to share all of those creative (and sometimes unhinged) ideas with you all.
So grab a polish (or five), get comfortable, and come hang out with me!