About Us

Nail Care Reimagined

The Origins Behind Brooklyn's Cleanest Nail Bar

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A man and woman standing back-to-back indoors, smiling at the camera. The woman has long dark hair and is wearing a green outfit, while the man has short brown hair and is wearing a patterned shirt. The background shows a light-colored wall, windows, and indoor plants.
A man and woman standing back-to-back indoors, smiling at the camera. The woman has long dark hair and is wearing a green outfit, while the man has short brown hair and is wearing a patterned shirt. The background shows a light-colored wall, windows, and indoor plants.

Lili and Cata was founded on a question that most nail salon owners were avoiding: why are we still using toxic chemicals when better options exist?

Co-founder Lilly Rojas had spent years inside that industry — first as a nail artist— watching it optimize for speed and volume at the expense of everyone in the room. She saw technicians breathing in fumes shift after shift. She saw guests soaking their feet in tubs that were, by design, breeding grounds for bacteria. A Christine Valmy graduate and New York State Licensed Nail Specialist, Lilly knew the fix wasn't radical. It just required someone willing to build it.

So she did — alongside her husband, Jorge Rojas, a licensed architect and lifelong New Yorker. Together they designed a spa built exclusively on non-toxic, vegan, cruelty-free formulas, engineered a tub-free pedicure protocol to eliminate bacterial transfer, and installed hospital-grade autoclave sterilization more commonly found in medical settings than nail salons. They could have stopped there, but they didn't.

Having worked the other side of the nail table herself, Lilly understood that the industry's clean-air problem had a companion: a fair-wage problem. Technicians were routinely paid below minimum wage for work that demanded precision, patience, and hours on their feet. She set out to build a luxury spa where the people doing the work were treated with the same care as the people receiving it — safe to breathe, fairly compensated, genuinely valued.

And because she never accepted that a nail appointment had to be rushed, Lilly reimagined the pace of the experience itself — turning each visit into unhurried self-care, complete with an espresso bar and a wine list, so a nail appointment becomes what it should have been all along: a reason to slow down, sip something you love, and permission to let yourself be looked after.

Today, Lili and Cata operates in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and continues to set the standard for what a clean, innovative, non-toxic nail salon looks like.

Close-up of a person's hands with manicured nails painted bright red and light pink with red outlines, wearing a silver ring on the ring finger of the left hand, with green plants and a brick wall in the background.
Indoor dining area with a white marble table surrounded by wicker chairs with black and white patterned cushions. The table has wine bottles, glasses, and a plate of baked goods under glass covers. The wall has wooden shelves with bottles and plants, and hanging paper lamps provide warm lighting. The floor is covered with small white hexagonal tiles.
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Boutique nail spa's pedicure station featuring reclining leather chairs chairs. The background features a floral green wall with pink flowers.
Display of multiple rows of colorful nail polish bottles on wooden shelves with LED lighting in a nail salon.

As Seen In

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Two hands with white manicured nails and a silver ring on the ring finger touch a large green leaf with yellow veins and holes.
Multiple shelves with rows of colorful nail polish bottles, arranged by color, on a wall display in a salon or store.
Person receiving a hand massage or stretch therapy from another individual.