About Vanessa Ivy
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Vanessa Ivy is an award-winning Australian luxury nail polish brand.
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Vanessa Ivy Founder and Owner Vanessa Kardas (née Nicolaidis) founded the business because she could not find a clean nail polish with a luxury bottle that performed exceptionally.
“As a regular nail polish user since a young girl, I tried all sorts of polishes, from budget to designer and small indie to mass-produced global brands. I found that something was missing with all of them - either they had known toxins in their formula that was concerning, the brush was thin and resulted in a streaky mani, the bottle looked basic and didn't impress me, the colours weren’t rich when applied or left me with excessive stains that resulted in damage to my nails. I also became increasingly concerned about using products that weren’t vegan and cruelty-free. As a vegetarian for over 20 years and animal lover, the thought of testing on innocent animals for commercial purposes or using animal ingredients in cosmetic formulas didn’t sit right with me.
With this in mind, to create a fantastic beauty experience for myself and the nail polishing community, I went on a mission to develop Vanessa Ivy. During the research and development process, the first batch of colours I tested from our manufacturing team impressed me so much as I had never in my 25+ years of nail painting tried anything as good as it. The texture and rich colour were next level. I knew immediately that this formula was the right one to use in our products. It also ticked all of the boxes that were important to me - it was made locally in Australia, vegan, cruelty-free, free from many toxins commonly found in cosmetics, made using a plant based formula and breathable. From further researching ingredients for safety to designing a high-quality luxury 15ml bottle with silver detail and everything in between, I launched Vanessa Ivy in 2020 with its first collection of nail polish colours.”
Within two months of launching, Vanessa Ivy received two awards from Organic Beauty Award. This included a Gold Award for Vanessa Ivy’s breathable nail polish range and an Editor's Choice Award for the Tenacious Blue nail polish colour. Since then, Vanessa Ivy has since received more than a dozen awards.
BREATHABLE NAIL POLISH
Vanessa Ivy is proud of our breathable and water-permeable formula, which means that oxygen and water can permeate the polish coating so it can reach the nail surface without compromising the quality of the finish. Our team has run internationally recognised standard test methods to the ASTM D 3985 and ISO 15105-2 standards and found that the nail polish film results were 69,700 cm3/m2/day.um, which classifies it as very permeable.
CERTIFICATIONS
Vanessa Ivy's entire product range is cruelty-free and vegan, which means we do not use animal-sourced ingredients and never test our products on animals. Our products are certified by Safe Cosmetics Australia for being both Cruelty-Free and Vegan. Providing our customers with a safe nail polish range is essential to Vanessa Ivy. We believe in true clean beauty and are entirely transparent about what we put in and purposely leave out. We never hide our ingredients on our web pages or packaging. Our formula uses sustainable plant-sourced ingredients and is certified as Made Safe by Safe Cosmetics Australia. We follow their strict rules and can demonstrate that we exclude many chemicals of concern.
MEDIA & EVENTS
Vanessa Ivy has been seen in Vogue Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life Magazine, and multiple editions of Clean Beauty Magazine. Vanessa Ivy was a key sponsor for the fashion label IXIAH at Australian Fashion Week in 2021, where their models wore Vanessa Ivy nail polishes on the catwalk.
PHILANTHROPY
Vanessa Ivy partnered with the Australian Cervical Cancer Foundation in 2020 and 2021 to raise funds for National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week. Together, we developed a new product called 'Screened & Preened', and $15 from each bottle sold was donated to the foundation to support their goal of eliminating cervical cancer. Learn more about them at accf.org.au.
Are you interested in learning more? Feel free to reach out to us on 03 9021 0030 or contact@vanessaivy.com.
