By LCN Business Desk
A professional nail brand designed first for the Global South has launched from Georgetown. LNC Professional (Guyana) launched on 7 September 2026, and the brand goes to market in the United States this week. The company is the successor to NSI Nails Guyana and its CARICOM affiliate, the Caribbean distributor for the American professional brand formerly known as Nail Systems International, Inc.
The colour range is where the Caribbean origin shows. In the salon, Lexann McPhoy and her technicians routinely mixed gels by hand to reach shades that matched the complexions in front of them, because the shade ranges they bought did not. That mixing is the chemistry the brand is built on. It opens with 26 shades, a range chosen to carry the world's hues rather than a slice of them.
Who is running it?
Three women, on three continents, with the same professional history.
| Who | Role | Background |
|---|---|---|
| Lexann McPhoy | Chief Executive Officer, LNC Professional (Guyana), and global Chief Brand Officer | Serial entrepreneur; Caribbean distributor for the former Nail Systems International; runs the brand's CELAC operations from Guyana |
| Isabel Fisher | Chief Executive Officer, global operations | Former Chief Operating Officer of NSI |
| Darlene Tewitz | Training and product testing | Canada; a global Purple Platinum Educator with NSI |
The wider bench comes from the same place: former NSI educators, nail technicians, distributors, resellers and executives are behind the brand. The company says it is the first Guyanese-led professional nail brand to launch globally.
What is in the range?
A seven-product gel liquid system, with the exclusions printed on the bottle rather than in a brochure. Every product in the launched gel liquid range carries HEMA-free and TPO-free on its label, and MMA-free applies across the brand, as La Caribeña News reported in LNC Professional Is Entering the Mid-High Nail Market. Rubber Base arrived in August in two shades, Clear and Honey Blush. The products are formulated for up to three weeks of wear retention.
The brand's other distinguishing choice is the climate it was built in. A range developed in Georgetown is tested in heat and humidity from the first day, which is the condition most of the Global South works in. Lexann McPhoy's own salon, and the standard she has set in it, was the subject of a La Caribeña News feature in June, Beyond the Polish.
What else is the brand trying to fix?
The working day, not just the product on the table. The company treats a technician's problems as a set: what goes on the nail, how the appointment is booked, whether the deposit can be collected, what the stock room says, and whether any of it works when the internet does not.
That is why it backed LNC Pro Suite, business management software for beauty and grooming professionals built for Global South conditions, which the company says works with or without an internet connection. Salons bring their own preferred payment platform to it. In Guyana that means MMG+: a Georgetown salon took its first mobile money deposit inside the software this week, with the money settling into the salon's own merchant account, as La Caribeña News reported in A Georgetown Salon Took a Deposit Online This Week.
The third piece is people. The brand's training and product testing sit with educators who came through the same professional system, which is how technique, rather than only product, reaches a technician working alone in a small salon.
What support does a Guyanese business get to do this?
More than it had two years ago. Lexann McPhoy has drawn on the Private Sector Commission's Business Support Desk, which the commission set up with financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank to make Guyanese businesses ready to raise money. The desk offers business planning, financial structuring, legal advisory and information services, according to the commission.
From 5 October another door opens. The Guyana Development Bank starts lending with a first tranche of G$20 billion and zero-interest, collateral-free loans of up to G$3 million for small and medium enterprises, as La Caribeña News reported in The Guyana Development Bank Act Is in Force. Women entrepreneurs are named a priority group, reported in Named Priority Groups for Guyana Development Bank.
That matters for the businesses standing where this one stood a few years ago. Guyanese women are moving into business ownership as the share of people working for themselves rises, reported in More Guyanese Are Working for Themselves, and capital has been the hardest part, reported in Capital Is Everywhere in the Caribbean.
Why does a shade range matter commercially?
Because it is the part of the category that has been solved for some customers and not others. A technician who has to mix two or three products to reach a client's skin tone loses time, wastes product and cannot repeat the result exactly at the next appointment. A range built to match those tones from the bottle removes all three problems, and it does so for the markets where most of the world's nail clients live.
Guyanese technicians have been building international careers on that craft for years. La Caribeña News reported one of them in Six Years at the Table: A Guyanese Nail Technician's Craft.
What happens next?
The United States launch this week takes the brand into the market its predecessor served for decades, and the CELAC operation stays in Georgetown under Lexann McPhoy. The company's trade calendar runs through the beauty shows where professional brands are bought rather than browsed.
A shade mixed by hand in a Georgetown salon, because nothing on the shelf matched the client in the chair, is now a number in a global range.
Disclosure: LNC Professional (Guyana) and LNC Pro Suite share common ownership with La Caribeña News.
What the title card shows
- 7 September 2026: the launch date of LNC Professional (Guyana), in Georgetown. Source: the company.
- 26 shades: the opening colour range, built from the shades the salon used to mix by hand to match client complexions. Source: the company.
- Three women lead it: Lexann McPhoy in Guyana as CEO and global Chief Brand Officer, Isabel Fisher as global Chief Executive Officer, and Darlene Tewitz of Canada on training and product testing. Source: the company.
- Seven products in the gel liquid system, every label carrying HEMA-free and TPO-free, with MMA-free across the brand. Source: La Caribeña News, 8 August 2026.
- LNC Pro Suite: business management software for beauty and grooming professionals, which the company says works with or without an internet connection, and which took a live MMG+ payment in Georgetown this week. Source: the company; La Caribeña News.
- G$3 million: the zero-interest, collateral-free loan the Guyana Development Bank offers small and medium enterprises from 5 October, with women named a priority group. Source: La Caribeña News.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is LNC Professional?
A professional nail brand launched from Guyana, successor to NSI Nails Guyana and its CARICOM affiliate, which distributed the American brand formerly known as Nail Systems International. LNC Professional (Guyana) launched on 7 September 2026 and the brand goes to market in the United States this week.
Who leads the company?
Lexann McPhoy is Chief Executive Officer of LNC Professional (Guyana) and the brand's global Chief Brand Officer, running CELAC operations from Guyana. Isabel Fisher, former Chief Operating Officer of NSI, is Chief Executive Officer for global operations. Darlene Tewitz of Canada, a global Purple Platinum Educator with NSI, supports training and product testing.
Why 26 shades?
The range began as shades mixed by hand in a Georgetown salon to match client complexions that existing ranges did not carry. The brand opens with 26 shades chosen to cover global skin tones.
What support is available to Guyanese businesses doing this?
The Private Sector Commission's Business Support Desk, funded with Inter-American Development Bank support, offers business planning, financial structuring, legal advisory and information services. From 5 October the Guyana Development Bank offers zero-interest, collateral-free loans of up to G$3 million, with women entrepreneurs named a priority group.