Michelle Mismas loves nail polish. A former nail biter and editor of the popular All Lacquered Up blog, Mismas took her first step into the nail industry by visiting makeup message boards online to talk about her passion. She realized there was no one giving the scoop on nail news.

“You’d find little blips on the radar here and there about polish, but there just wasn’t anyone covering it from a consumer standpoint,” she says. “I started my blog for the nail board girls as a place where we could keep all the information we found.”

At AllLacqueredUp.com, launched in January 2007, Mismas reviews the majority of collections that come out and includes tests on her own nails to show the true color. She also covers trend reports, tutorials, simple nail art, and interviews with celebrity manicurists and other bloggers.

Her fan base started with the message-board community and quickly grew as other polish enthusiasts began visiting the blog. The site popped up on Google searches and was linked to by other beauty blogs, including Glamour.com and Blogdorf Goodman. “Nearly three years later, it’s insane the amount of growth it has seen,” says Mismas.

The blog has caught the attention of some manufacturers. Elle Gerstein, creative director at Barielle and an ALU reader, got in contact with Mismas, and they met up to talk about creating an All Lacquered Up collection. The two worked together to come up with 12 colors for fall, launched in August of this year.

At around the same time, Ji Baek of Rescue Beauty Lounge decided to create a three-color blogger collection and invited Mismas to participate. She came up with a creamy purple color, named Mismas, which also launched in August.

Through ALU, Mismas gets backstage passes to the biggest fashion shows, an improvement from the days when she could only see runway nail colors if they were highlighted by the press. She recently blogged about the colors at New York Fashion Week. “At Fashion Week, you really get to see nail professionals working at how they come up with the colors and how they work with the designers,” she says.

Formerly an accountant, ALU’s success allowed Mismas to quit her “day job” in September. She says the biggest perk of the blog, though, is the connections she’s been making, whether it’s with her industry idols or appreciative readers.

When asked why she thinks All Lacquered Up has been such a success, Mismas says, “I try to bring readers what’s new and what’s coming next, and share with them the trends I’m seeing. I’m honest in my reviews, in that if I don’t like something, people know.”