Nailed it: DIPD helps customers do salon-like manicures at home — and it’s making millions

It was a passion for helping women to invest in self-care, inspiring them to take back control of their nails and save money on manicures, that saw Melbourne entrepreneur Nadia Stamp create an at-home nail dipping system that has earned $3 million in just three years. 

Founded by Stamp and business partner Natalia Kajkic in 2020, DIPD is Australia’s first and original dip powder home kit nail product and the only product of its kind manufactured in Australia.

The beauty brand offers customers dip powder manicure sets to do their own nails, allowing them to achieve multiple salon-quality manicures with no ultraviolet (UV) lighting from the comfort of their own homes.

A dip powder manicure is a combination of a glue-type resin and powder that hardens when it hits the air, leaves a long-lasting colour, and strengthens your nails in the process.

Stamp was one of many Australians who found themselves without work during the COVID pandemic and decided to use that time to start a business.

“COVID happened and all of a sudden I had time on my hands, which I’d never really had before, and I’d always wanted to start a brand,” she told SmartCompany.

“I was thinking about business ideas and at the time I had SNS, which is like a dip powder nail, on my nails when all of the salons closed and so did the whole of Australia.

“Any woman who has been to a salon was wondering, ‘how do I get this off my nails’ and ‘how do I reapply it again?’

“I was trying to work out how to remove them and that’s when the light bulb came up. I was thinking it would be amazing if I could work out what the system was and sell kits.

“I looked deeper and realised that in America it was already a thing and they were selling kits.”

Both Stamp and Kajkic then picked the brains of nail technicians and suppliers, invested $1000 each into the business, and made up around 150 nail kits to see what would happen.

Within three days the nail kits had completely sold out.

Stamp says the brand offers an affordable way for customers to invest in self-care. 

“I think we all want to feel good about ourselves,” she says. 

“I feel like people are looking at ways of saving money while being able to still groom themselves nicely.

“Nails are just one of those things. When you have your nails done it makes you feel done and it makes you feel good about yourself too.

“DIPD is all about empowering women to take control of their nails, to be able to do it themselves, and to become their own manicurist.”

DIPD has recently started shipping overseas, starting with New Zealand and the US, and is continually adding to its product range and colours. 

“We’re a business that likes to design new colour collections based on fashion,” says Stamp. 

“We don’t like to sit on colours and the date. We like to evolve, so we’ll have a range of your classic colours that are quite timeless, but then we like to experiment as well and bring in colours that revolve around key events of the year like Christmas and Easter.”    

Similarly, DIPD regularly upgrades the liquids in its kits, based on performance and technology, says Stamp and tries to “keep everything as much in Australia as we can, from packaging to the products that we sell”.

But the demand for DIPD kits is global.

“We’re just starting to test the European and the American markets,” says Stamp. 

“We’ve got customers wanting our products in France, in the Netherlands, in the UK, and also in the US.”