Jim’s Nail Blog

February 9, 2014

IBX is Born; The Response; Systems and More from Vegas

Posted on February 1, 2014 by jimsnailblog

Wow, my last post was in September of last year…it seems like just a couple of months ago! We have been a bit busy at Famous Names bringing our new sensation to market: IBX. Linda and I have been working on IBX for over two years and most weeks its been seven days a week. We are really excited about it since it is a completely unique and original product (and is patent pending) that has great demand in the professional nail market. In short, IBX is a curable, penetrating, monomer system that can grow your natural nails or act as a protective shield for the natural nail under all gel polishes. It strengthens and toughens the natural nail and produces amazing results. IBX was just released two weeks ago and the response from all over the world has been overwhelming! We created a stand alone website for IBX at www.ibxnails.com It contains a huge amount of information (including some amazing before and after pictures) and I hope you check it out. We also created a 3D promotional video that can be used by the nail professional to educate their clients on what IBX offers them…here is the link: http://youtu.be/kUhJnGKBn60

We unveiled IBX at the ISSE Long Beach show this last weekend and were gratified at the response…some industry heavy weights were calling it a “game changer”…we would humbly agree with that! Nail Professionals immediately “get” what IBX will do for their clients and we look forward to hearing their experiences with the product. It was also gratifying that many of our fellow nail companies came over to congratulate us on our breakthrough. It reminds me of when I was CEO and Chairman of Creative Nail Design (now CND) from 1983 to 2000 …if a competitor came out with a product that was good for the Nail Professional, I was the first to congratulate them on their breakthrough (and then proceeded to beat myself up on why CREATIVE hadn’t come up with the idea :)). Sadly, that same trait does not exist today at my old company.

Linda and I are proud to work with a small team of talented and motivated people who helped to bring IBX to reality. There were less than 10 people who worked on this project (including Linda and I) from conception to launch into the marketplace. We have a policy of not naming names, but they know who they are and we are deeply appreciative of their hard work, mega-talent and the sharing of our passion for the Professional Nail Business. Linda and I have been in the industry our entire working lives. We love it and we hope to make contributions well into the future that enable Nail Professionals and their Clients enjoy our industry.

Which brings me to the concept of “Systems”. During my tenure at Creative, I had the pleasure and honor of working with Doug Schoon, who reported to me as VP of Research and Development. In those days, the liquid and powder systems dominated nail services in the salon. We strongly urged the Nail Professional to use the entire “system” as designed (typically there were four components: liquid monomer, powder, cleanser and primer) since there was mixing of chemically based products with each other. If a client had an adverse reaction and you were mixing product systems, who would you call? How would you figure out what the source of the problem was? So, in that sense, using the “system” made great sense. The same applies to today’s Gel Polish Systems…you should use the base, color and top coats as designed by the manufacturer. However, products like IBX, Dadi’ Oil, Lumos (all from Famous Names) are add-on or adjunct products that can be used with any professional nail service products and bring incremental performance and results for your clients. As a professional, why would you not want to use the best? My advice to those Nail Professionals reading my blog is to try and test new products that can bring you greater success…why would you NOT want to??? Don’t let the big guys scare you into using their “systems” (translation: we don’t want you to try anyone else’s products…we want ALL of your hard-earned money). DO stick to using those systems that were designed to be used together. We field tested IBX for 15 months under all of the top gel polish systems with great success. IBX is adhesion neutral, so has no impact on how gel polish adheres. What IBX DOES do is to create a stronger, tougher natural nail underneath the gel polish, allowing the nail to better withstand the removal process.

An update on Las Vegas: We love it here! Once you survive the months of July and August, the weather is fantastic to very good. Unlike the coast where you can have long periods of coastal overcast, Las Vegas is nearly always sunny, so even if the temperature is on the cool side, if you are in the sun, it feels much warmer. The cost of living is about 40-45% less on an apple to apple basis and then add in no state income tax, and July and August become quite bearable 🙂 We live 15 minutes from our home to a parking space in the airport…when you travel a lot, that is a big deal. The drive to San Diego is 4 hours and 15 min on average, so very easy to do. It’s amazing to watch plane after plan after plane on approach on Fridays. It seems (not surprisingly) that people tend to use money as a measuring stick of success more than I saw in San Diego, but that is something we choose not to participate in. The most common SOE (standard operating equipment) by far is the “boob job”…I don’t know how many cosmetic surgeons there are here, but they are all busy (haha). The Strip is just 15-20 min away, so great dining and shows are easy! So all in all, we are very happy.

Finally, I have been a Denver Bronco fan my entire life. My father had season tickets when I was a kid in Denver and I remember him coming home after setting through cold weather and enduring many losing seasons. So, GOOD LUCK to Denver tomorrow…I hope they can bring home #3!