The Dannika Detailer - How I Ended Up Launching a Brush With One of My Favourite Brands

In 2020, on my hunt for a small “taggable” brand to purchase glitter from, i purchased from Glitter Planet.

That was it. That was the big master plan.

I wasn’t strategically placing myself in their eyeline, trying to secure a collaboration or setting out with the goal, “one day, I’ll have my name on one of their products!”. I was a customer. I liked what they made, spent my own money and continued buying from them because I genuinely used their products.

Five years later, we’ve just launched the limited edition Dannika Detailer together.

Just typing that feels absolutely mental!

I think social media can make opportunities like this look very sudden and lucky. You see someone announce a collaboration or partnership and it appears as though a brand found them one Tuesday, sent over a contract and six weeks later their name was on a product. You see the launch but you don’t necessarily see the years that came before it.

I became a Glitter Planet customer in 2020 and then later became a Brand Ambassador. I continued using the products and supporting the brand because I actually liked it. There wasn’t one huge viral moment that changed everything. I just kept showing up.

That probably isn’t the exciting secret you want to hear, but the real answer is consistency and loyalty.

But not blind loyalty. Not pretending every single product a brand releases has changed your life or is perfect. Just genuinely supporting a company you believe in, being reliable, honest and allowing a working relationship to grow without constantly asking what either of you are going to get from it.

I think we have developed a very live fast, die hard attitude towards brands online. A parcel arrives and suddenly it is somebody’s favourite brand in the world. They post it constantly for a month but then another parcel arrives from somewhere else and the first brand is never mentioned again. That sort of short term exposure-focused relationship has never been the relationship I wanted with Glitter Planet, or any brand.

I was a customer first. Then I became part of the brand. Now we have created something together.

This was never just my name stuck on a brush

When the possibility of creating a brush came up, it had to be something that made sense to me.

I didn’t want to choose a random brush, put my name on the handle and pretend we had reinvented the wheel. If I was going to create something for nail artists, especially something aimed at the detailed art I am known for, I wanted it to be something I would genuinely use.

Lorna and I worked on it for months.

The result is a double-ended brush with a 9mm detailer on one side and a flat shader on the other. The detailer can be used for fine lines, leaves and all of the ridiculously tiny details I insist on painting. The shader can be used for blending, shading and clean-up.

It has protective caps, synthetic bristles and a shaped body that stops it rolling off the desk. That last feature might sound small until you have watched your favourite brush launch itself directly into the dustiest corner of your studio halfway through a set.

Every part of it had a purpose.

It wasn’t Glitter Planet making a product and asking me to advertise it. It also wasn’t me handing over an idea and waiting for them to do everything. We both brought something to it. We discussed it, tested ideas and created something that reflected the way I actually work.

The word collaboration gets used very loosely online, but this really was one.

Then there was the packaging

The brush itself is obviously incredibly special to me, but the packaging is where it became properly personal. Yes, the name on it is my own handwriting and yes, I drew the faces on the outside packaging.

But my daughter drew a picture of me, and that drawing is on the box.

It is such a tiny detail, but it means more to me than I can properly explain without becoming a bit emotional about a piece of cardboard.

She is four. She doesn’t understand what a product collaboration is or why seeing my name on a nail art brush is such a huge moment in my career. She just knows Mummy paints nails and apparently needed to be immortalised on the packaging in the shape of her artwork.

But I know what it means.

My daughter has grown up around my work. She watches me paint, film, edit, doubt myself, try again and get ridiculously emotional about something as silly as nails. Now something she drew is part of a product carrying my name.

One day she will be older and understand how big this was for me. I’ll be able to show her this box and tell her she was part of it too.

That is the detail that stops this feeling like generic merchandise. It feels like mine.

I got to visit Glitter Planet HQ

As part of the collaboration, I travelled to Glitter Planet HQ for a content day.

Again, this wasn’t a finished product being posted to me with a list of videos I was expected to make in return. I physically went down there, spent time with the team and created the launch content with them. I wasn’t asked to, I wasn’t paid to, for me it was my way of giving a little back for all the hard work Lorna had put into making my dream brush a reality.

This entire relationship has felt a partnership and above all else, a friendship.

I’m not just a face being attached to something they made. Glitter Planet isn’t just a logo I’m borrowing to make myself look more established. They trusted my experience as a nail artist and content creator, and I trusted them to turn our ideas into a professional product we could both be proud of.

We both showed up for it.

Personally, this is what I think all good collaborations should feel like. Both people should bring something valuable, both should be listened to and heard and both should care about the final result.

Lorna and I at Glitter Planet HQ

It took five years, and I’m glad it did

I see a lot of people seemingly rushing to some imaginary finish line in this industry. How quickly can they become a BA for a brand? How quickly can they get noticed and known? I could have wished for this collab sooner but honestly, I don’t! The fact that it took five years is part of why it means so much, and what makes it so special.

When I first ordered from Glitter Planet in 2020, I wasn’t the nail artist I am now. Since then, my work has changed, my confidence has grown and my career has taken me to places I genuinely never expected.

By the time the opportunity came, Glitter Planet knew me and everything I stood for. They knew my work, my style and the type of artist I am. And I knew them too. I knew the products, the people and the business I was attaching my name to.

It wasn’t a gamble between strangers. It was the next step in our relationship that had already been growing for years.

I’m sorry, I know, “be consistent” isn’t particularly glamorous advice. People want a trick, a contact or the exact number of followers needed before brands start offering opportunities. I didn’t have any of that.

I became a customer. I continued being a customer. I became a Brand Ambassador. I worked hard, stayed loyal and built a real relationship with the people behind the brand.

Then, eventually, we made a baby!

The Dannika Detailer

The Dannika Detailer is now a real product that people can buy (as long as stocks last!), use and keep on their desks.

There are nail artists I have never met painting with a brush that has my name on it. Orders went out containing boxes with my daughter’s drawing on them. I even handwrote a note for every person who ordered one:

Your imagination is your greatest weapon. This brush will help you unleash it.

All 150 of them.

By hand.

A decision that felt beautiful and personal until somewhere around number 76, when my hand started cursing me.

But I wanted every order to contain something from me because this launch isn’t just another product going out into the world. It is a piece of my career and a relationship that began when I was simply a customer placing an order.

There was no overnight success story. No perfect plan. No five-step method for getting your name on a product.

I found a brand I loved, supported it consistently and built a genuine relationship, a real friendship, with the people behind it. They believed in what I could bring to a product, I trusted them with something deeply personal, and together we made something I’m incredibly proud of.

The Dannika Detailer has my name on it.

My daughter’s drawing is on the packaging.

And five years after placing that first order, I still cannot quite believe either of those sentences is real.

To get your hands on this limited edition brush before they’re all gone, click the button below!