2 mins
A JOURNEY TO REMEMBER
As a dedicated contributor to this year’s Professional Beauty Nail competition, NSI shows its commitment to industry and its most valuable resource The nail technician. But how did it all start?
Our History
Since the early 1950s, NSI parent company, AMCO, a family-owned concern, was the proud manufacturer of high-quality products for the dental and nail industry. NSI’s history started with humble beginnings in 1957 when Dr Slack (Fred Slack’s father) cut his thumb nail while working in his dental laboratory. Using aluminium foil, he created a platform to fix the nail with dental acrylic, which led to the patent of the nail industry’s first sculptured form.
Patent of nail industry’s first sculpture form.
Original chemists, Fred Slack and Bob Maxwell
As early developers, inventors, and chemists, the company pioneered the first non-yellowing, cross-linking formulations used in all acrylic systems today. In the late 1960s, Fred Slack along with his team developed a new “nail technician friendly” liquid and powder which is still being used worldwide.
In 1987 Fred Slack and his son, Rick Slack, decided to brand their already successful formulations and created Nail Systems.
NSI in South Africa
After acquiring a few international distributors, with South Africa being one of the first, the company’s name changed to Nail Systems International, commonly known as NSI. This year, the company is proud to announce 30 years of service to the industry.
Rick’s first visit to South Africa was for a trade show where he visited NSI South Africa’s original master distributor, Nora Barnard (founder of Dream Nails) in 1998. Katia Da Silva was only 16 years old, and a trained nail technician for 9 months, working at the NSI stand offering sets of nails to attendees. This was the first time Katia and Rick met, and little did they know how the future would change 21 years later.
A lifelong professional dream of Katia was to meet Fred Slack, which became a reality after winning a trip to NSI Headquarters in 2014. She attended an NSI University training program for NSI Educators worldwide in Philadelphia USA and won two of the three top awards for Best Acrylic Enhancement and Best Gel Enhancement.
This achievement awarded Katia Purple Platinum Educator for NSI. Today, there are only four of these educators worldwide. Now, she
shares the privilege of being invited occasionally to train internationally for USA and other international distributors and is part of the NSI Global Educator team.
Our Future
In 2019 December, NSI USA appointed Katia as the new Master distributor for NSI South Africa. With the unknown Covid pandemic, like many in the industry, the future was unknown. NSI however have been busier than ever, researching, developing, and manufacturing innovative products. From new monomer formulations, HEMA free hard gels to one coat Colour gels with a built-in glaze or shine and HEMA free cream gels.
Our future has become ever more exciting for the nail technician today. 2024 promises to continue to “make the chemistry so that you can make it beautiful” – Rick Slack (NSI President)
For more information of NSI products in South Africa please browse our website www.nsisouthafrica.co.za
Global educators Denise Wright UK), Darlene Tewits (Canada), Katia Da Silva (SA)
Rick Slack, Katia Da Silva and Fred Slack invited to demo at Orlando Premier Show 2015.