March 14, 2017

Meet Katie Masters of Nail Thoughts in Santa Monica

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Masters.

Katie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was always doing crazy nail designs for myself and friends on the side because I HATED getting my nails done. I never liked the atmosphere, I never felt comfortable, and honestly it was never fun for me. So I started doing my own nails and it became so therapeutic that I would do them every three days! When I started getting into the nail art world, it started hitting me that basic local salons didn’t even offer the type of stuff I was doing and didn’t seem to care about the art like I did. So, I finally made the jump and went through beauty school and from there decided to go straight into opening my own private salon. Since my process and techniques are so different from the average nail salon I knew a private salon was the only way I could thrive and create the perfect custom art for everyone that comes in.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Honestly, sometimes there are obstacles every day! Since my salon is so heavily art based people come in with so many requests. Everyone is so different from each other style-wise that I really have to craft basically a new custom art piece every couple hours! So if I am having any sort of creative block I feel like I’m letting myself down. I never realized how picky and sensitive I would be about my art until I got into this industry,

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Nail Thoughts story. Tell us more about the business.
My salon specializes in gel nail art. Since my salon is a small suite, it is only me working in there so I have really created such a different nail experience than what everyone is used to. It’s private, one on one and in that appointment I am only focused on you. When you walk in, you can be as quiet as you want or as loud as you want without worrying about anyone else around. Since I only work with gel, there is no typical nail salon smell of acrylic or nail polish either. Honestly it’s like a different world! I am so happy that I have created an actual fun nail experience. It’s so satisfying and sweet seeing people come in to me so genuinely happy and excited to be there to make a new nail art dream come true.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
People have told me I’m very “lucky” for being naturally creative, but I really don’t think people are born creative. I wanted to learn to do nail art when I was younger and when I started, I was SO BAD. It was nearly impossible for me. So I kept practicing and every few days I would redo my nails for a couple years straight! Then I started realizing I should probably start to learn to how draw in general. So I got an actual drawing textbook and read through the entire thing and did every single exercise inside of it. Then I realized I didn’t really know how to draw with a brush, let alone with gel, so I ended up paying a monthly subscription for nail art tutorials straight out of Japan and would practice every day on press on nails. But after I had to learn how to do them on all different nail shapes and sizes, and not only that, but under a time constraint! It’s all taken so much work and tons of classes that I can say my creativity is solely based on practice and not luck.

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