Nail Polish Business Plan, With a Projection

A nail polish business plan for an indie brand is mostly a plan for color. The polish itself starts as a ready-made suspension base, bought by the gallon, and the brand is the pigments, micas, glitters and flakies mixed into it, in small batches with names people collect. A 15 ml bottle has about $2.30 of base, pigment, glass, brush and label in it, and sells for $13. The rules are about the colors: each one has to be approved for the use. In the example below, an indie polish maker in Florida sells bottles online and at markets, bottles to shops, gift sets and top coats, and ends its first year about $18,600 ahead on $55,300 of sales, with every hour paid at $20. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the rules, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the brand in a paragraph: the colors, who buys, where, the goals.
• Cost a bottle from the base up: suspension base, pigment, bottle and brush, label, time, fees.
• Use only color additives approved for the use, and keep each supplier's sheet that says so.
• List every ingredient on the label, in order of how much there is.
• Make each shade in batches with a batch number, so a bottle leads back to its pigments.
• Polish is flammable; check how your carrier lets you ship it.
• TaroStack makes each shade as a batch from its recipe, records the pigment lots in it, and keeps every bottle counted. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Coquina Lacquer Co., a made-up indie nail polish maker in St. Augustine, Florida, I use in these examples, writes:

Coquina Lacquer Co. mixes small-batch nail polish in shades named for the Florida coast, from a ready-made suspension base with approved pigments, micas and glitters, and sells it online, at markets, in gift sets and through about 20 boutiques and salons. In its first year it aims to sell 600 bottles a month.

Part 2: the rules, colors and labels

Every color additive used in a cosmetic must be approved by FDA, some must also be batch certified by FDA, and each approval is for a use: a color approved for externally applied cosmetics, which doesn't include the lips, can't go in a lip product unless its regulation allows it (FDA). So the plan buys pigments, micas and glitters from suppliers who state which uses each is approved for, keeps that sheet for every color, and keeps each pigment's lot on the batch. A cosmetic's label lists each ingredient in descending order of predominance (21 CFR 701.3); what else goes on it is in cosmetic labeling requirements. What MoCRA asks of a small brand, and what it excuses, is in MoCRA for small businesses. Nail polish is flammable, so carriers restrict how it ships; check yours before promising shipping. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 3: what a bottle costs

The time costs more than any one material, and the glass, cap and brush cost nearly as much as the base. How a whole cosmetic line's startup adds up is in cosmetic business startup cost.

Part 4: customers and prices

In a month at full speed the direct bottles bring $2,457 of the $4,596 of contribution, the gift sets $932, the top coats $614 and the shops $593. A shop pays half the retail price and leaves $2.47 a bottle, so the boutiques and salons are there to be seen, and the brand's own shop is where it earns.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $1,055 every month: studio space with ventilation ($400), the website and online shop ($50), insurance ($70), ads and samples ($400), swatch photography ($100), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed:

The year's sales are $55,250 and the profit $18,609, with every hour paid at $20. The first two months lose a little, $492 at the lowest. A full month is about 51 hours of mixing, filling and labeling; the rest of the work is photographing swatches and answering messages, which the ads and photography lines pay for.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $4,700 spent before working cash is earned back in month 8, when the cash reaches $5,825.

Get the template

Download the nail polish business plan workbook. Four sheets: your bottles, sets and top coats with price, variable cost and a month at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

Forty shades, each a recipe of base and three or four pigments, mixed a few dozen bottles at a time, a gallon of base that goes into everything, supplier sheets for every pigment, and limited shades that sell out in a day. A notebook can't say which pigment lot went into a batch someone has a reaction to, or how many bottles of the bestseller are left.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack makes each shade as a batch from its recipe, records the pigment lots in it, and keeps every bottle counted.

Shades as recipes. Each shade is a recipe of suspension base by the milliliter and pigments by the gram, so a batch takes them off stock, gets a lot of its own, the batch number on the bottle, and records which pigment lots went into it, automatically. How a cosmetic batch record works is in cosmetic batch record template.

Supplier sheets with the pigment. Each pigment is received with its lot, and fields of your own on the lot, such as the approved uses from the supplier's sheet, so the paperwork behind every color is with it.

Bottles and reorders. Every bottle sold online or to a shop comes off stock, and the base, bottles and brushes come up on a reorder list in days of cover, worked out from how fast they're used.

Recipes, batches, lots and reorder lists are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How much does it cost to make nail polish?

In the example, a 15 ml bottle has about $2.30 of base, pigment, glass, brush and label, and four minutes of mixing, filling and labeling; with packing and fees, $4.81 to sell direct.

Do I need FDA approval to sell nail polish?

Every color additive in it must be approved by FDA for the use, some must also be batch certified by FDA, and the label must list the ingredients. MoCRA adds duties that depend on your size.

Is a nail polish business profitable?

It can be. In the example, an indie brand ends its first year about $18,600 ahead on $55,300 of sales, with every hour paid at $20, and most of what it earns from its own shop.

How much does it cost to start a nail polish business?

In the example, $7,700, with the first base and pigments, the first 2,000 bottles and $3,000 of working cash the biggest parts.