Essie

How A Trip To Vegas Launched The Famous Nail Polish With A Thousand Shades.

- Robert Klara

Essie Weingarten founded the nail polish company bearing her name in 1981, but it wasn’t until eight years later that she knew that she (or, rather, her brand) had truly arrived.

A letter arrived from Buckingham Palace— specifically, from Queen Elizabeth’s hairdresser, who kindly requested that a bottle of pale pink polish called Ballet Slippers be shipped off to Westminster.

Nowhere in the many (many) tellings of this story has it emerged how the Queen found out about Essie, but the larger point is that she did. And before long, the royal request put Ballet Slippers, and Essie, on the world’s beauty map.

Then again, that was happening anyway. Because founder Essie Weingarten wasn’t just an innately gifted marketer, her polishes filled a niche that hadn’t existed before—and, indeed, still do.

“Essie continues to be at the top of the polish pyramid because Essie Weingarten was really the first one to build out the idea of a must-have color,” said Erin Flaherty, Hearst Magazines’ executive editorial director of luxury beauty.