Hello and welcome to this edition of Life On The Free Edge where I'm absolutely thrilled to pieces to be sitting with Morgan Haile and Taylor Daniel of the Morgan Taylor Professional Nail Lacquer brand.
Hi guys!
Hello.
Hey Alex, thanks for having us.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for joining me, because I bet there are people out there that have no idea that Morgan Taylor are actual real people behind the brand.
In the flesh, right? Yeah.
So here we are, we've got Morgan and Taylor of Morgan Taylor Professional Lacquer.
Yes here we are! Yay, brilliant.
Well, I think we should tell people that not only are you the two amazing women behind this global polish brand, but you also come from really great nail stock, I like to say, because notably you've got two incredibly industry-famous fathers.
Morgan, you've got Danny Haile as your father, and Taylor has David Daniel.
Both are the brain and nail brawn behind a company called Nail Alliance, which is found in California, which is the company that has invented and produces Gelish, which was the incredible invention that came out in 2009 which, quite frankly, changed the trajectory of our industry for the better as we're all aware.
And I'm led to believe that, between David and Danny, they've both accrued about 30, if not 30 plus years, of industry experience.
They've carved out a huge career of industry milestones, which one notably for me, is going back to the year 2000, they were part of the original team that came up with the brilliant idea called the Nail Olympics, which was first hosted in Vegas.
Which obviously now, still a brilliant idea, now called Nailympia.
So that's talking about your famous dads, now moving on a little bit, I have a feeling that you two might also be related, but I'm not entirely sure? Yes, we are blood-related.
Even though I have brown hair and she has blonde.
We don't look much alike but we are actually related.
My dad is Danny's uncle, but they were basically raised as brothers.
They were around the same age, grew up together, are very close- knit families.
So yes, even though they're uncle and nephew, they were raised just like brothers, best friends.
So we call each other cousins, even though we're not technically cousins.
That is super exciting guys! That's super exciting, that means that you've known each other pretty much your whole lives and you've both grown up around nails.
So that makes an awful lot of sense that you've got proper nail blood running through both of you.
So I think probably we should just get down to it and find out, how did you both get from childhood into Morgan Taylor? How did it all happen? Yeah, that's definitely a journey.
So, like you mentioned, we've been around the industry our entire lives.
I remember we were.
well in our previous family company, we were running around the warehouse and playing with products and Taylor even had a color named Taylor's Pearly Pink.
I had Morgan's Red.
So we've all been around the industry playing with products and just being, whether it's in the warehouse or at the office, just as kids, that's what we would do.
That's where we were at and just like playing.
Then as we developed.
as we got older, and had interests and things like that it.
we definitely took our different paths and different interests and then it all just led us back to the core, back to our roots.
So, like for me, I went to a university to study healthcare administration.
So more in the healthcare side and business side, but it wasn't so far off the path where I am now, because I was able to learn a lot about the business side of an industry and take that with me and also in the everyday things of what goes on in a business.
I learned a lot.
I learned a lot about that, I took some marketing classes, and, I think it's good to have.
to keep your mind open and to bring that back to your core.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I remember one instance Morgan was talking about us kind of getting up high jinx at the old company.
There was this room where we housed all of the packing peanuts.
So if you're old enough to remember shipping in the early 2000's, there were white foam packing peanuts and we just had huge bags of them stored in this particular like closet sized room and Morgan, myself, our brothers, and some of the other kids of the people who worked there at the time, broke into all of the bags of packing peanuts and just filled the room with packing peanuts.
Eventually, we were caught as we were like playing in the 'snow' of packing peanuts and it was quite a situation, but those were just those were the days of our childhood, kind of playing around and we have been around nails quite literally our whole life.
So it definitely have those great memories, but then growing up.
I actually have been an avid reader my whole life and wanted to be an English teacher, so I started going to school to be a teacher and I just came to work at the company as a receptionist part- time and was helping out, filing papers and stuff, and then slowly got more and more interested and just never never left.
That was 11 years ago.
So I think a lot of people don't know too is that we really started from the ground up.
Our dad's didn't just say, Alright, you know, here's your nice office job.
It was like, No, you're gonna learn a lot of aspects from the company.
Right.
So I remember being in the warehouse literally filling product, like hand-filling like.
But it just.
Yeah, it just brings a new perspective, gives you new appreciation, and also shows you the process.
Now I think about it, Morgan, that's when I met you both for the very first time was actually the The Beauty World Show in Dubai.
That's when I first ever came upon you and approached you, I do remember created or had these polishes, these life polishes made.
Yes.
So someone was in this costume and we didn't know about it.
So when we approached the booth, you know, it looks just like a product and everything, and then we look over like, Is that a dancing polish of Morgan Taylor? It was so funny.
It's great.
So if you guys entered right from the ground up doing little bits and pieces, how did the actual Morgan Taylor lacquer come about, when you've got a situation where and Morgan Taylor, sister products to Gelish, global phenomenon, how.
you must have known that Morgan Taylor was going to take off around the world.
So how do you go about actually creating this polish brand? That's a good question.
So we.
the company first started with Gelish with the whole foundation of making it easier for a gel application to the natural nail.
And it really took off but we felt like we were missing a little bit more.
We really wanted to bring that traditional lacquer, but not just any traditional lacquer, like something that was truly pigmented, had a lot of thought about it, especially for the professionals who're using it, right? Everything from the bottle, to the cap, to the product inside was really thought out.
Even to the brush, we even went back and changed our brush to make it more of a friendly use, but when it came to naming the.
So we knew we wanted a lacquer line, but when it came to naming it it was.
well, what's the future girls? And you guys want to be a part of this and we want to.
our dads were saying that they wanted to keep their legacy going.
So, we're taking that baton on and creating Morgan Taylor into what it is and it really took off quite fast.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And in the brand itself, was almost created as a way to honor what the industry has meant to our family.
As we both said, we grew up around this industry and when our dads were coming up with the name together, that's one of the things they said.
They wanted to bring a lacquer.wanted to give to the industry almost in a way that it's given to us.
So really centering in family, the family aspect of our business and how much at the core of our entire families.
We love the nail industry.
So it was really tying the two together and that's how Morgan Taylor came about and it was just then once it was named, then it was long days of picking up the packaging and what's a good color range that's gonna fit? Like you said globally, you know, different markets have different preferences for color.
So making sure there were some nudes and reds and glitters, making sure there was a finish and a color family for everyone and really a true professional lacquer that was just high quality and gave a great salon experience.
Wow, that's so interesting to find out all of this from you guys.
So can you tell us what year that this was launched onto the market.
2013 was when we started working.
Yeah, and then 2014 was when it really kind of globally launched.
Yeah 7 years ago.
Wow that's a long time.
So I notice that you've managed to be on the scene, whether it's yourselves or the brand, you've done quite a lot of fashion weeks, New York Fashion weeks.
How did that come about? Well, actually our first fashion show was in Italy.
Yes, it was yeah.
Yes DSquared.
Yeah, it's actually through a distributor of ours who helped make it happen and then from there we were, ok we need to do New York Fashion Week.
So you started at Milan Fashion Week, that was the first one and then you got the bug is what you're saying, yeah? Absolutely, yes.
We had to go to New York.
Yeah.
New York we've been doing that since.
so long, I think even before technically we were on the market, right? Yes.
Yeah it was the February before we launched on the market because we launched on the market and in April.
So in February, we were in New York.
And yeah did I think two shows that very first season and then after that it was like a massive undertaking in the following seasons, but you know, it's great.
We really wanted to.
There's a lot of benefits to being at Fashion Week and we wanted to make sure that, like I said, we were creating a professional brand but professional brands need to have the end consumer know who they are, you know, the retail consumer needs to know who the brand is in order to go into the salon and ask for it or to ask their nail technician to stock that brand.
So it was kind of about being on the pulse of fashion knowing what colors and trends were coming about, but also trying to reach the end consumer and letting them know, here we are, we're this new brand on the scene and we want to represent fashion-forward and quality colors.
Wow, that's amazing.
It's so interesting to find out and to know that you actually managed to get into New York Fashion Week before you had actually launched on the market.
I'd thought that's really quite hard.
So really impressive.
So how often do you guys actually present a collection? So we present a collection a few times a year.
So we do spring, summer, fall and then holiday/winter we combine the collection.
It's been really fun.
So actually Taylor and I, we create the colors, we work on the collections themselves.
So we sit in the lab and look at trends and what's going on in the world, and figure what is on trend but also what is wearable? What is the end user going to like? What is the nail tech going to like? What is the client going to like? and so on.
Sometimes it hits us right away.
We get it.
We have these colors, it's done, but other times, it's more of a lengthier process because you know, we want to get it right, I always fight for certain colors, but I know it's not wearable, but it just looks so pretty.
Absolutely.
Yeah Morgan and I actually we took a color class in France.
We went to Paris together and we still work with this same color house, well a trend house, based in Paris and we learned all about, you know, building colors the undertones of colors, pairing and putting together collections of colors that are complementary with just enough contrasting nature in them as well.
So it was really important for us to build that foundational knowledge and then coming back here, and working with the trend books and interpreting how the upcoming year's color trends will translate to nails specifically.
Yeah.
That's incredibly interesting.
I remember thinking what do we expect in this class? And you feel like a foreign exchange student.
I'm in a country.
I don't really speak their language what's good what's going on? But I remember they put paint on a plate and then alright mix colors.
And you're like, you know, just the standard and it's like, no go further.
Go beyond that, go beyond that and then we had to create harmonies as they call it.
We had to put a collection together and they asked why would you do this? Why would you do that? So they really helped us develop what it means to have a collection, not just these colors are pretty, but more in depth thought process into why colors work together and what they do and what they mean, because we are a global brand and different colors and different things around the world can be interpreted or have the different feeling.
Yeah.
And also colors on different skin tones look different too.
So something like cool tones look really good on you.
And warm tones look different on me.
So having that thought process was really cool.
And yeah, I'm so glad we had that experience.
I would love to go back.
Wow, so that's actually like the science and the study of color and you went did it on one of the fashion capitals of the world.
It doesn't get much sexier than Paris guys.
So, where do you, I know you mentioned that you look around the world when you're sitting and you're assessing trends and you're looking at stuff, but what are the other sources or more specific sources of your inspiration for collections? well, sometimes we were at New York Fashion Week and they wanted a custom color and we didn't have anything like that because it was a very like copper-metallic tone.
And then we created it on this spot essentially, for Fashion Week for this designer and then we were looking at it and it's actually a really pretty color, and then we put it in one of our collections.
So sometimes it's like that right? It's an accident.
it just happens.
Yeah, totally color can do that.
It can lift your mood.
It can bring you into a better place if you're having a bad day.
So, just trying to think about what's going on in the world.
What's trending? There's a lot of pop culture influences on our collections sometimes, so yeah really inspiration can strike from anywhere.
Yeah.
nails and make-up and beauty, the beauty industry as a whole is a way for people to escape from the heaviness of what was going on or what they couldn't do, you can escape through color, you can escape through textures and things like that and have fun and play.
That's a really important point you've both made there, because we know that one of the reasons women, well anybody goes for manicure is because of the feeling and then the result and the result gives the feeling, so it's a beautiful journey having a manicure full stop and I just love this idea that there's so much behind your collections and behind the ideas and and the journey of inspiration and the study of color.
This is all just.
it's really nice to learn about and hear about to be fair guys.
Thank you.
So I think you should give us a typical day.
Morgan and I do different things here in the office.
So I'll go through my day first and then she can fill us in on what her day looks like.
But you know, it's just waking up early, coming into the office, checking email.
Obviously, we want to make sure we're on top of what we're doing.
My responsibilities fall a little bit more in the.
I specialize in a lot of our copywriting.
So I write our press releases.
I help with our advertising copy and coming up with our stories, our features and benefits for our new product development, things like that.
So I could be doing any of those things on a daily basis, you know, writing a press release for our upcoming collection, and then if we're working on colors., it's a color meeting in the lab to touch and feel and get our hands dirty and then working with the team here doing the process of launching a product from A to Z from nothing to being on the shelf and existing.
Yeah, product development.
That's pretty fun too.
is figuring out what's coming next or what's important or what don't we have in our line? That's going to make it a household name.
Some of my favorite things about my job is to do with the PR side of it.
Talking to people figuring out what products will work for this type of story and just getting the product out there and thinking of creative ways on how we can tell our color story or tell our collection story or .you need to know about this product.
or we need to.
this is what's going on.
So these products were perfect.
or you need to know about this and and so on.
it's fun.
It keeps us creative in different ways and working, you know, we are influencers, it's so busy.
It's never ending, it's never done.
It's never a quiet day and the days are never the same How many have you got on your Morgan Taylor team? How many of you are there? Well, we have in-house our marketing team, our sales team and then outside our office we have our education team and they're able to spread it all around the world.
Yeah, and we've actually gone with our sales team and helped done pitches and explain the products.
It's actually been kind of fun.
Yeah, so what Morgan was saying, we have a marketing and an art team internally here.
So the people who work on Gelish, Morgan Taylor on the daily, is about 3-4 people at any given time plus then we have an internal artist, videographer those types of things when assets are needed.
So we started off with one person doing everything and been so blessed to grow the team here as we've needed to and been able to expand.
Yeah.
I don't think a lot of people know actually what we do in-house.
We literally have everything in-house, which is kind of rare these days because a lot of people will outsource, which is fine, it works for them.
But yeah, we have marketing, we have videos, we have photographers, we have a whole lab, we have sales across the street, we have shipping.
We have it all in-house, which makes it really nice because we're able to see the process and help, you know, make sure it's quality from the start to finish.
You can also be a quick responder can't you? You can respond to all things when everything's at your fingertips rather than outsourcing, which can hold things up can't it? So, that must mean then, that Morgan Taylor and Gelish really work closely.
I mean, maybe we should just talk a little bit about that because I'm guessing that the colors of Morgan Taylor and Gelish are the same? Matching? Okay.
So yeah, nice idea, very nice idea.
And so you work very closely with that team as well.
Yeah, it's really a blended team when it comes to Gelish and Morgan Taylor because obviously our colors do match together.
We really want to create a similar message, obviously Gelish has different products than Morgan Taylor does, as far as you know, just the colors itself and different formulas, but you know, they are sister brands, so we link the brands very closely.
How many colors are you currently running on Morgan Taylor? So we have our core line up.
That's what we call our everyday offerings.
And that's at this point over 200 shades and then like Morgan said, we we launch new colors 4 times a year.
So that's 6-12 colors 4 times a year, roughly 24 new shades every year.
So it's quite an undertaking.
That must mean that when you look at your complete palette, that you must have a really lovely amount of reds and then a really lovely amount of greens, so that you can pretty much make anybody happy.
Right, absolutely trying to appeal to everyone and a color, a finish, a texture, for everyone absolutely, and then also, you know when we're creating new colors, it's a matter of looking at the palette as a whole and what's missing? Are there shade gaps? Is there a color that we absolutely have to have for summer, because it's going to be super on trend or bright pink is always going to be great in the summer.
So, how can we tweak that a little bit? So maybe it has a shimmer this year, or it has a yellow undertone versus a blue undertone.
It's a bright versus a neon, you know, trying to to really find the niches for every color.
Blimey, it sounds like your jobs are really good fun.
I'm not going to lie.
I'm sitting here quite jealous thinking how much I would love to play with polish, well I know you do more than play but you know where I'm coming from.
So I know that you've been around the world judging, you do a lot of Nailympias, you're international floor judges.
Fantastic.
You also do gel polish judging behind the booth and you've been contributors for industry trade titles.
I know you did a fantastic column in Scratch for some time.
You do the fashion weeks, now it turns out you've done them in Milan as well as New York, crikey.
And don't forget Paris.
Lots going on around the Morgan Taylor nail brand.
So can we finish up them by finding out what is the future? What's the future as you see it? What can we look forward to? Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, you know like through the start of the brand and through the pandemic and where we are now.
I think nails aren't going anywhere.
And it's such a fun creative way, whether you're just a nail lover, and whether it's your business, you know, it's such a it's such a statement.
It's a feeling it's whether you like a nude or a bright color.
You're putting out a statement to you, who you are, what you like.
And it's just fun and we want to keep bringing out the best products.
For the end user, for the professionals and you know, we are going to keep molding and growing, shifting and changing, to make those things happen and have accessible products.
Yeah, the Genesis of Gelish was, How do we make the nail technician's life easier? How can we make salon services easier to achieve? And that's sort of the driving idea behind our continued innovations.
We are constantly thinking about how to improve the lives of nail technicians.
So that's what we're going to keep doing.
We are going to keep going back to the drawing board and hopefully the industry keeps blessing us with its faith in us and we will keep working on products as long as nail technicians want us to.
As long as they keep buying, we will keep working for them.
Brilliant.
So, essentially we've got years and years of great stuff to come? Absolutely.
Brilliant.
This is brilliant.
Well, look, I've super enjoyed talking to you both today and finding out about the journey, the story behind the journey, the journey every day.
It's been really fantastic.
So thank you both very very much for joining me today.
Bye guys.