Ambedo Beauty: The Brisbane Nail Brand Built on a Feeling

There's a word for it. Ambedo: a quiet trance of vivid sensory details, the feeling of being so absorbed in a moment that the world goes quiet. Neena Carter found it while brainstorming names for a nail brand. She and her business partner Emily could have gone with something obvious — something with "gel" or "nail" in the name — but the word they chose said more about what they were building than any product description could.

"We didn't name this brand after a product," Neena says. "We named it after a feeling."

The feeling is this: you sit down, you do your nails, and for ten minutes or an hour, nothing else exists. Your hands, your colours, something beautiful. In a world where stimulation arrives every two seconds, that quiet is hard to find. Ambedo was built to give it back.

Opposite Personalities, One Vision

Neena and Emily first crossed paths in late 2020. Their backgrounds couldn't be more different. Neena came from the beauty industry — community-driven, people-focused, the kind of person who lights up when she talks about making someone feel good in their own skin. Emily's background is business: operations, strategy, the nitty-gritty of building something from zero to one. She'd previously launched a shapewear brand that didn't work out, but the lessons stayed.

"Emily is the nitty-gritty," Neena says. "She is in there with the development of the business on the operational side." Neena handles the customers, the community, the communication. Together, they describe it as a yin-and-yang dynamic — opposite personalities with perfectly complementary skills.

The timing wasn't accidental. Post-COVID, people had changed. They wanted to do things at home. They wanted to use their own tools, not share. They wanted something safe, approachable, and — unexpectedly — therapeutic. "Something really amazing that we found," Neena says, "is the therapy element. People just wanted something where they can calm their mind while still achieving something."

Building Something That Didn't Exist

What they built took a year of research and formulation. The core innovation is a solid gel system — not liquid, which runs and floods cuticles, but a solid texture that stays where you put it. The flagship product is a customisable DIY gel palette: interchangeable capsules in a kit with a brush, where you can swap colours in and out. It earned a design patent — the world's first customisable solid gel palette — and it solved a problem that the at-home nail market had quietly failed to address.

"People would ask, can we choose our own colours?" Emily says. "So we made it three instead of six — and they can just buy individual capsules and pop them in."

Three systems now sit under the Ambedo name. The Solid Gel system is the original: long-lasting, chip-resistant, beloved by artistic nail enthusiasts because it doesn't make a mess. The Builder Gel (BIAB) is for weak nails — a fibre-based formula that acts like armour, helping natural nails grow longer and stronger. And the Speedi Mani, their newest obsession, delivers a full manicure in ten minutes: tinted base, tinted top, cure under a portable rechargeable lamp, done.

"I did my own nails this morning," Neena says, showing a fresh nude manicure she completed in ten minutes before the interview began. "Even before I had my coffee."

The Recognition

In 2025, Ambedo won Prevention Magazine's Best DIY Mani/Pedi award. They'd submitted their products not expecting much — "the worst they can do is say no" — and found out months later they'd won. A staff member at the magazine had already been a customer.

"When you pour so much energy into the product itself, it's really nice to be recognised," Neena says. "We believe it, our customers love it and believe it, but it's nice to have someone else give you the little trophy."

The award cemented the brand. It gave them the confidence to push harder on the design patent, which had been a long, expensive process. It also followed a feature in Style Magazine's Women of Brisbane special edition, which spotlighted the founders' journey and their unconventional approach to the beauty industry.

Don't Paint a Canvas. Paint Your Nails.

The product is one half of Ambedo. The other half is something Neena talks about with visible excitement: Nail Social Club.

The idea came from paint-and-sip events — the popular format where people gather over drinks to paint canvases. Neena saw them and thought: I'm artistically challenged. If I painted a flower, I wouldn't take that canvas home. But what if you paint your nails instead? You take a skill home. You feel put-together. You've had a conversation with like-minded people, had some bubbles, learned something real.

"I want to talk to people face to face," Neena says. "Not just an e-commerce brand that sells you a product and you never hear from them again."

Emily saw the strategic angle too. They'd considered retail — Westfield, department stores — but chose to build their own community instead. "In a shop, it's hard to stand out," Emily says. "When you create an experience, it's a different connection." The events make buying products a natural, seamless part of the day rather than a transaction. Every Nail Social Club has sold out.

What's Coming

The next Nail Social Club is Saturday 22 August at The Forefront in Hamilton — a classic paint-and-sip session with the Build-a-Gel class. Then on Saturday 24 October, something bigger: a Halloween-themed event with games, dress-ups, and a larger venue with indoor and outdoor spaces. Neena is already planning her costume. The vision is seasonal events that go beyond nails — community celebrations with Ambedo at the centre.

Beyond Brisbane, they're thinking national. "We start from Brisbane," Emily says. "But we're seriously thinking about expanding to other states soon." The plan is to perfect the experience first, then take it interstate.

That Quiet Moment

Back at the interview, Neena is applying a coconut-scented cuticle oil — a bi-phase formula that moisturises without greasiness, and the gateway product for anyone not yet ready to try gel. "Even if you're not at the point where you want to try a gel nail," she says, "try cuticle oils."

It's a small moment, but it captures what Ambedo is actually selling: not polish, not lamps, not palettes — the feeling of slowing down. Of sitting with yourself and making something beautiful, then going on with your day.

"We really want everyone to have that Ambedo moment," Neena says. "That's it."

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Ambedo Beauty — ambedobeauty.com | @ambedobeauty

Nail Social Club — Saturday 22 August, 2–4pm, The Forefront, Hamilton. Tickets at ambedobeauty.com/pages/nail-social-club