We customise everything these days – why not our nail polish?
Daryl Chew is the genius behind Nail Deck, handmade nail lacquers that are vegan, cruelty- free and made without nasties. Take a photo of any colour on the Nail Deck app and they will customise your polish with stunning accuracy. How brilliant is that?!
“Nail Deck aims to create a world where anyone and everyone can celebrate their individual uniqueness through colour.”
We speak to Daryl about Nail Deck and the most important job in the world… being daddy to adorable Dean.
The Man
So who is Daryl Chew?
I’m the founder of Nail Deck, a company I started [six] years ago as a distributor and retailer of overseas nail polish brands. Today Nail Deck is a brand of its own that specialises in bespoke colours for its customers.
When I’m not working on Nail Deck, I’m a dad to my [one and a half] year old son and train for triathlons in the hopes of qualifying for the Ironman World Championship one day.
What do you do for work?
My work is very colourful (pun intended) and generally involves making customers happy by giving them the exact nail polish colour that they want whether its for their own personal use or as a gift.
What’s the best thing about working for yourself?
The freedom to manage my time in any way I want.
If I wasn’t me, I would be….
A professional athlete.
Being Daddy
How many kids do you have and how old are they now?
1 boy – 1.5 years old.
So daddy, when work is said and done for the day, what’s the first thing you wanna do with your kids?
The first thing I want to do when I get home is to give him a big hug and tickle his chin because I love the sound of his hearty laughter.
After that one of my favourite things to is taking him to the nearby parks like Botanic Gardens or Macritchie Reservoir for him to run about and explore.
Do you have a breakfast routine with your kids and what is it?
On weekdays I leave for work before he wakes up so I generally don’t have a breakfast routine but on weekends we either have a big home cooked breakfast (hipster cafe style) or go to the nearby wet market for youtiao and mifen.
What’s the one thing both you and your kids look forward to come the weekend?
Just having everyone together and doing random activities as a family.
Name me one sport/activity you and your kids particularly love to watch or play without mum.
Our form of sports activities right now is going down to the void deck to look for the family of cats living in our estate.
Favourite baby room?
My baby’s own bedroom because it’s fully padded and so many toys it’s like an indoor playground.
Favourite fun place and why?
Botanic Gardens because there’s a lot of open empty spaces where we can just roam around. Also because there are always a lot of people walking their dogs and we like to go say hi to them.
Favourite place to eat with and without kids?
With the kid – Food for Tots at Botanic Gardens or Cafe Melba at One-north
Without the kid – Potato Head
Do you have a bedtime routine and what is it?
Yes it’s usually dinner from 7-8pm and then a little bit of playing until 8.30pm then it’s shower, change, milk and then sleep by 9pm.
If someone asked your kid to describe you, what do you think they would say?
A bit of a nut head who has his nails painted more often than mummy.
What was the strangest/funniest/grossest thing that ever happened to you (when your kid was a baby)?
When he was just a couple of months old, we laid him on his back to change his diaper and when we lifted his legs, he shot out a super strong projectile poop that stained my entire pants.
If you could do it all over, would you do it differently?
The only thing we’d have done differently I think is that we would start his sleep training earlier. For the first [six] months we didn’t realise babies had to have a proper sleep routine so he was sleeping very badly at night and of course that meant my wife and I were sleeping very badly as well.
Use MUMMYFIQUEXND for $8.00 off your Nail Deck purchase. For every item sold online from 8 March to 7 April 2018, Nail Deck will donate $1.00 to the International Women’s Day supported charities. #pressforprogress
Damelza Harris-Olsen is your multi-tasking, on-the-go mum to two active little boys. When not stuck on writing, you’ll find her on adventures with her husband and sons, on a photoshoot somewhere painting faces or on a home (re)decorating binge.
