In February 2009, Michelle Mismas met nail polish namesake Essie Weingarten backstage at a fashion week show. Mismas, who runs the popular nail blog All Lacquered Up, casually mentioned how much she loved Dominica Green, a discontinued Essie polish with a cult following so devoted that bottles on eBay routinely fetched upwards of $100. Several months later, she received a bottle of the reissued polish, with a label handwritten by Essie herself.

"The fact that she had even heard of my blog made me feel special," Mismas said. "Like I had made an impression on the industry beyond the true fanatics who were following my blog."

It feels impossible nowadays to scroll through Pinterest or Instagram or Tumblr without seeing close-ups of people's nails, adorned with glitter and geometric patterns and pictures of fruit. Although nail art has been popular for years in African-American communities and avant-garde foreign fashion magazines, recently social media has helped jazzy nails go viral. And the people behind some of the most viral nail looks are not professional nail technicians — they're women who have leveraged doing their own nails as a hobby to a very influential place in the nail industry, with numerous sponsorship deals and their own polish lines. Their work has caused women previously unaware of nail art to clamor for intricate designs and new unconventional polish colors, while prompting rapid innovation in at-home nail care.

The nail polish industry is currently worth $1.1 billion, according to market research by IBISWorld Inc. A recent article in NAILS magazine reports that dollar sales of mass market nail care products grew by 26% in 2011, suggesting that the masses are increasingly testing new looks at home. Mainstream brands like Sally Hansen are selling products like nail art pens and gel polish kits so that experimenting with nail art from the comfort of your own bedroom is easier and more affordable than ever. And many thousands of consumers are introduced to new products and new looks by bloggers like Mismas.

"We're that best friend you've never met," said Melissa Osburn, who runs the blog The Daily Nail. Osburn became a known "lacquerista," as nail obsessives are called, after posting photos of her bacon manicure, which went viral in 2009 and netted her blog nearly 1,000 subscribers practically overnight.