How Love Inspired My UGC Business

I’m so proud to create UGC with love for many wonderful brands – but this is only possible because of the greatest women of my life and how much they love me. 

The best things in life all start with love. That’s how I’m sitting here today, with 400 bottles of nail polish and a business I’m truly passionate about. But to me, my small business is way more than just that – a business. It’s a way to honor my beautiful mom, Christine, and my late grandmother, Rose, and my relationships with both of them. 

I’ll never forget my grandma’s hands and beautiful natural nails. She always did her nails herself, with regular nail polish, and usually in red. She had a drawer full of nail polish and tools in her TV room, and we’d take them all out and sit on the floor together. I’d watch her paint her nails and use her magical oils and lotions. Her hands were such a distinct part of my childhood – they picked me up, cooked me pasta, opened up new bedtime stories, brushed my hair. It’s amazing what you remember about someone through the blurred vision of childhood. There are so many other incredible things I remember about my gram, but through the lens of five-year-old me, I knew her for her laugh, her smile, her smell, and her nails. 

When my gram got older, she lost sight in her left eye, and I began painting her nails for her. This became our thing, and it was something I really looked forward to every other week. We’d sit at her kitchen table and chat, and I’d paint her nails in whatever color she was in the mood for. In her final years, she was especially into wearing essie nail polish. The last color she ever wore was essie ‘lighten the mood’, a bottle I still have today. 

When she died in 2021, it was my mom’s idea to create an Instagram page dedicated to nails and our relationship. That’s how @ lovealwaysrosexo began, and it quickly turned into something more. 

Since then, I’ve worked with some of my all-time favorite nail polish brands, and I’ve even helped some smaller nail businesses get off the ground! I became obsessed with getting my content to look its best, and I’ve spent hours on lighting and getting the small details just right. 

It means so much to me to create nail designs inspired by my gram, and to have them published across such large platforms. For me this is a way of keeping her alive, and a way to keep her in my thoughts on a daily basis. When someone dies, we often think of them with a sense of longing, wishing they’d still be here to experience life with us. Creating nail content helps get me out of this grief-driven thought process, so I can remember my gram for everything she was and is. Her death represents only a small fraction of the time we shared together – it’s her love, beauty, and warmth that truly matters and remain evergreen. There’s no one like her, and her memory deserves to be bright, glamorous and full of life, just like she was. 

Two years into nail content creation, I realized that I wanted to branch out into beauty and lifestyle content as well, which is when I created @ UGC by Gabriella. This page serves as a place where I can post general beauty, fashion, lifestyle content, which I’m really enjoying. Creating beauty and lifestyle content opens the door to celebrating my gram’s life in other ways, and also celebrating my relationship with my mom. These women have taught me so much and I get so inspired by them every day, so I’m excited to use that inspiration to drive this page forward. 

I’m so excited to see what’s in store as I continue to create content and explore this career path. I’ve worked in marketing for over 15 years, but working with brands that I’m truly passionate about has been incredibly rewarding for me. I’m so grateful for my mom and grandma and the creativity they’ve instilled in me throughout my life. If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading, and I hope to create UGC with love especially for you and your brand. 

Want to work with a UGC creator who has 15+ years of experience in digital marketing? Contact me today.