On October 6, 2014, Andréa Vieira was 39, freshly relocated to Washington, D.C., and standing outside the doors of her soon-to-be-opened nail salon. Vieira knew nothing concerning the beauty business, but with $3 to her name, this thing just needed to work.

The journalist-turned-speechwriter was residing in Seattle when a poor nail salon experience spurred a business idea — and a complete life change. “I quit my job — this shouldn’t be an exaggeration — the subsequent day,” Vieira tells Allure. “I used to be like, guys, I’ve got to go open up a nail salon. And other people were like, ‘Wait, you’re going to do what?’” Vieira was still wearing the red polish from that manicure when she moved across the country just three weeks later.

Now, nearly a decade later, Vieira is leading a beauty empire within the nation’s capital as founding father of the increasingly popular nailsaloon. The flagship location, in D.C.’s Logan Circle neighborhood, launched in 2014; a second outpost in Capitol Hill followed in 2018. Vieira is currently working toward the launch of two more locations within the DMV area: one in Chevy Chase, Maryland in early 2024 and one in northwest D.C. later within the 12 months.