Holo Taco
I first became interested in nail polish when I was in high school. The first colour that I ever bought was black. I wanted black because I wanted a dark polish. I wasn’t interested in most of the colours that where available in the drugstore, they were mostly light colours and so much was in the pink, purple and red shades. That was not my vibe so I went for the darkest shade that I could find, black. I thought that it looked really cool and I loved painting my nails black but I started to get teased and being called goth/emo made me feel very self-conscience and I stopped wearing nail polish altogether.
However, my interest never really went away and I would often look at nail polish when I was in the drugstore wishing that I liked the other colours as much as I liked black. When I was in University I finally picked up my first bottle of burgundy polish. My thought process was that navy looked too much like black but burgundy was still dark enough while still being a different enough colour. I wasn’t very good at painting my nails which I think deterred me from painting my nails every week but I did really love it. It was probably about 5 or 6 years ago that I started to paint my nails more often. It wasn’t every week but it was as much as I could and I felt like my technique was starting to improve. I remember one summer I bought some white polish and spent the whole summer with white nails because I thought it was a summery look. I was hooked.
2 and half years ago I discovered a YouTuber who goes by the screen name simplynailogical. Her name is Cristine and she started her channel to showcase her nail art. When I discovered her she was doing more lighthearted funny videos that sometimes had to do with nail polish. I thought that she was so funny and relatable so I started to watch all of her old videos and shortly thereafter discovered that she had her own nail polish company called Holo Taco.
Holo Taco is named after the Holographic effect that Cristine loves so much and Taco because that is what it sounded like when Cristine said top coat in her nail art videos. One day I decided that I would try out Holo Taco, it looked like great polish so what did have to loose. At the time there wasn’t much selection, they were still a new company, so I purchase One Coat Black, Royal-tea Blue and Scattered Taco. From the first swipe I was sold. Holo Taco is the best nail polish that I have ever used. It is so easy to use and is super opaque so you don’t have to do to many coats and the special effect polishes are beautiful. I am a huge fan and have watched as the company has grown. They now have over 100 polishes and I have almost all of them. At first I wasn’t sure if I would want all of the colours but slowly I have come to realize that I do want them all.
Ever since my first purchase of Holo Taco I have painted my nails every week. There has not been a day that I have gone outside without nail polish on and I love that it has become such a part of me. It makes me so happy to get compliments on my nails because after all the practice I have had I have become pretty good at painting my nails. Some people will ask me about the time it takes me and say that they would never be able to sit for an hour a week, they don’t have the patience. The truth is I love it, it relaxes me. I love picking out what I colours I am going to use and I have become more and more adventurous with my manicures over the past couple of years. I rarely use just one colour anymore and recently I have started to play around with nail art, I even pulled off butterfly nail art.
July marks the 3rd anniversary of Holo Taco and tomorrow, July 16th, is the launch of the anniversary collection. Collection launches have become a bit of an event for me now. A year ago Cristine started to do a livestream for collection launches and I have not missed one since. I will plan my day around the livestream. It is so exciting to get hyped up about what the new collection will be and I love that Cristine shows off the polish and talks about the process behind coming up with the idea. It is fun and it has created a community surrounding Holo Taco.
Cristine now regularly livestreams twice a week and it is fun to watch the streams. There are now many people whose screen names I recognize in the live chat that I now follow on Instagram and I got very excited the first time I saw one of them like one of my nail pictures. I love being part of a community and especially part of one that is so lovely. Everyone is kind, positive, supportive and we are all there to have fun.
The long and short of it is that nail polish and painting my nails brings me so much joy. I am so glad that the teasing that happened when I was a teenager didn’t turn me off nail polish forever. At the time I didn’t realize that the teasing had nothing to do me, if I enjoy something it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about it, and at some point you will find like minded people who you can share your joy with. I just want to say thanks to this community and thanks to Cristine. You mean more to me than you will ever know. Happy 3 years to Holo Taco, I can’t wait to see what’s next.