Meet Lucas Lane. He’s 13, and has just launched his very own brand, Glossy Boys. He’s been featured on Sunrise TV, the Guardian, ABC News and Kidspot. He’s applied to be on the rebooted Shark Tank TV show.
Glossy Boys aims to “allow anyone to express themselves freely, through radical nail art”.
Lucas is a skater, an ideas guy, and just wants everyone to feel comfortable being themselves. So when it came to nail polish, that had to include lads (‘male-identifying people’) as he calls them, like himself.
Lucas wanted to give nail polish a go. Not thinking it a big deal, he found that Priceline’s shelves were bathed in pink and overwhelming for a lad like himself.
He considered the “quick draw” as he describes it: “do I ask for help and lie? Or am I honest and say it’s for me? Or do I go it alone?”
Quickly he decided to grab the first black bottle he saw and muddled past the pink shelves and headed for the counter. He looked at the label on the bottle. “What’s a base coat?” he thought to himself. Why is it so hard?
Lucas will tell you why he chose a pen, how lad’s hands tend to be bigger and how he needed a longer handle.
While ‘supply chain’ and ‘distribution’ and ‘margins’ were not part of his language, he’s knows what he knows: while others smile and nod and pretend, Lucas will tell you honestly that “maths isn’t my strength but I’m learning a lot — that’s where Mum (Breanna) helps. I’ve tested all the products. They’re skate-proof. They don’t come off easily. That matters.”
Lucas is adamant about creating a welcoming community. His all-boys school has allowed him to wear nail polish daily (“as long as I keep it neat”).
He manages all the social media, with some of his Instagram Reels reaching over 17.8K views and Tiktok engagement that’s off the charts for such a young brand.
He’s clear on what he wants and does not want. His carefully-crafted pitch deck goes right into education, community, customer archetypes, Google questions, Answer the Public. He’s clear what he does not want: not macho, not exclusive, not political. He wants the brand to be welcoming, retro, fun, and accessible. Self-expression for all.
It’s a family business. Mum Breanna is co-founder and Director and handles the emails, his Dad is the photographer, sister a digital whiz and his brother, the model.
Lucas the lad, and family, are on a mission to “unboring your hands”.
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Website: https://www.glossyboys.com.au/
Lucas on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasmax/
