Le Beauty, the Melbourne-based beauty wholesaler, has launched a professional nail polish collection to help end violence against children.
In partnership with Hollywood Nails, the company has launched the Polish Up collection of five mini-polishes and will donate 100 percent of sales to the Polished Man.
Launched in 2013, the Polish Man campaign asks people to paint one nail blue (to represent the one child in five who dies every five minutes as a result of violence) and donate a gold coin.
The campaign was created by Elliot Costello during a visit to Cambodia where he met a young girl named Thea “who after playing noughts and crosses for hours, drew a blue heart on his palm and then painted all of his nails blue”.
After learning that Thea had been physically and sexually assaulted for two years by a director at her former orphanage, Elliot instantly made the decision to paint one nail to remember her, and later when he learned of the extent of child violence, he created the Polished Man movement to help all children who are victims of violence.
Funds raised through Polished Man are channelled into trauma prevention and trauma recovery programs around the world including the Australian Childhood Foundation, SAMSN (Survivors & Mates Support Network) and Hagar Australia.
To find out a bit more about The Polished Man campaign, we asked Le Beauty marketing manager Emma White a few questions about the company’s decision to support the charity.
Why did you decide to support Polished Man?”
“We’ve always had a spot in our Le Beauty heart for great causes, so we usually help locally with supplying free products to school fairs and making donations to different causes. This year however we had the opportunity to make a bigger difference. Polished Man believes in a world where no child suffers from violence. With our passion for nails, our love for the cause and our need to make a difference, the choice to stand behind the Polished Man campaign was an easy one.”
How did you choose the colours for the nail collection?
“We are in a unique position as a wholesaler to get a holistic view on staple colours that stay on-trend and popular throughout the country. We wanted to pick a range of colours that would appeal to the wider audience, have something for all skin tones and would stay relevant. We also had a lot of fun naming the colours: Baby Shark After Dark (deep purple black), Don’t Be Jelly (deep lilac), The Queen Wore Aquamarine (light ocean blue/green), Top Knot & Double Shot (subtle nude) and Blame it on the Bubbles (cotton candy pink).”
How are you promoting your support of the Polished Man and the nail polish collection?
“The collection is available for sale both in our showroom and online on our website. Apart from our website promotional activity, we take the collection to events we go to. We’ve also collaborated with Swisse to set up a pop-up mani-station at their head office in Melbourne and we even set up a pop-up mani-station at our recent Beauty Warehouse sale. Hollywood Nails has also set up donation tins at multiple nail salons around Melbourne.”
Will the collection just be sold this month (October) or all year round?
“It is a limited-edition collection that we will keep selling until we sell out. We have created 1000 limited edition polish packs and will be stoked to sell the lot to be able to pass on $50,000 to the Polished Man while beautifying nails across Australia. With 100 percent of sales going to the cause, a big part of creating these polish collections is the messaging that comes with it. We want as many people as possible to hear about the cause so we can do more to help here and around the world.”
What has been the response to the collection from salons/clients so far?
“Wonderful. We know our salon clients make a difference in people’s lives every day, making them feel confident and amazing, so it’s not hard to believe they are getting behind such a great cause.”
For more news and updates, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.