Saoirse was here, getting her nails done. Her phone rang and she said, ‘It’s my day off… I’m not answering it’

Michelle and Andrea aim to make Tropical Popical ‘fun and colourful’. Right, Saoirse Ronan with nail artist Chloe Gilbert where the word ‘tropical’ and images of flamingos are recurring motifs.

‘ Then it was just a case of finding a word that rhymed with Tropical. So we came up with Popical,’ Andrea says. Within four months of opening she had quit her day job and the salon was all they had hoped for.

‘People come to us not just for the nails but just to have the chats with the girls,’ says Michelle. ‘And they’ll tell them about dates they’ve been on or where they’re going on holidays. They’ll come in with postcards for our wall. If they haven’t got an appointment for their nails they’ll drop in a postcard they got when they were away.’

One Friday in July a woman took out her diary and booked all of her nail appointments – making sure they fell at intervals of three weeks apart – between then and the Christmas party season. ‘ That was because it was getting annoying for people as we’re booked up so far in advance,’ says Andrea. ‘I know that I don’t think about my manicure until I need to get it fixed. If you’re like, “Can I book in for tomorrow?” We’re like, “Eh… what about in two weeks?” So people are getting into the habit of planning ahead – it is not what we wanted to be when we opened but is what we’ve become.’ Some clients want very intricate manicures. ‘People want a lot of pop art and cultural references. There was [a request for] David Bowie after he died. Another girl wanted Starry Night by Van Gogh. Another works in the RHA Gallery and she gets whatever artist is visiting recreated on her nails…’ Another got ‘Harry Potter nails’ to attend a party for the recent launch of JK Rowling’s new book. ‘And nails are a very small canvas,’ as Michelle points out.

‘We have problems hiring because we look for people who are amazing at nails, who are the craic and who are really artistic,’ says Andrea.

‘We can only grow as we hire staff. But we don’t want to hire the wrong people for the sake of growth. So we will always take our time until we get it right. The staff who are with us now have been with us nearly since we opened.’

They have set up a school, which is held in the shop on Mondays, their day off.

‘We can tell if someone is good and recruit them through the school.’

Saoirse and Monica Ronan once uploaded a Twitter selfie wearing the Tropical Popical T-shirts. But Michelle says she is ‘really bad’ at recognising famous people and Andrea says they don’t get any special treatment.

‘Our whole point is that we’re not celebritybased. So nobody gets free nails. Every single one of our clients is a VIP and we never want it to be exclusive. We always want it to be very democratic and open to everyone and for people not to feel like somebody else is more important to them because I hate that.’

Andrea believes in equality. Along with running the business, in June she and two other friends launched The HunReal Issues website ‘to mobilise people who aren’t driven by politics or current affairs to get involved in it’.

They immediately made waves by commissioning graffiti artist Maser to make his Repeal the 8th mural on the Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar. It was removed on July 25 due to complaints and a planning violation.

‘It was sad when it came down but it did get so many people talking about it. Whether they’re pro or against it, it’s getting people to think about what it means and how it’s going to affect people,’ she says, of the campaign to repeal the 8th amendment from our Constitution.

Andrea enjoys exploring political interests outside of work.

‘I definitely opened Tropical Popical to create the life I wanted to live. Not to make fortunes, luckily enough.’

Michelle adds, ‘We’d love a big, huge warehouse where we can do everything together so Andrea can have her office and we can have the school, we can have our hen parties.

‘So instead of having loads of branches, have one big premises.’

‘If you’re focused on making money you open branches,’ explains Andrea. ‘But our focus is on the craic.’

No wonder Saoirse Ronan was so impressed.