Our Story
Do you have a few minutes? Maybe 5? Okay... 10 TOPS!
There's a lot behind Beauty Art World, and apparently we're not very good at telling a short story. THERE IS SO MUCH TO TELL, but we'll try to keep it short!
We're a family owned indie beauty company in Wilmington, North Carolina, founded by husband and wife Christa and Anthony Bernardo. We handcraft our nail polish in small batches, obsess over the tiniest details, and have some pretty big ideas about where Beauty Art World can go. But this isn't one of those About Us pages where we tell you we "had a passion for beauty" and immediately ask you to join our mailing list. There's a little more to it than that.
Behind Beauty Art World are two very different founders, four kids, a house full of animals and plants, an unreasonable love of crèmes and shimmers, years of art and manufacturing, two parents we lost far too young, and a family legacy that inspired our name. And one stay at home mom who decided it was time to find her pink again.
So grab a coffee, get comfortable, and we'll try our best not to bore you to sleep.
Beauty Art World really begins with Christa.
Christa poured years into being a mom. Four kids will keep you pretty busy, especially when your journey into motherhood begins with twins at 20! Somewhere between raising a family and everything else that comes with adult life, a piece of the creative girl she'd always been became harder to find.
And Christa had always been creative. Art competitions as a kid, drawing, beauty, makeup, nails, crafts, crochet, plants. If she could create something beautiful with her hands, she probably wanted to try it. Eventually, nail polish became another creative outlet. Except this one stuck.
She found her pink again.
And the idea quickly became bigger than nail polish. Christa wanted to build something of her own. Something beautiful and expressive that could bring a little joy into someone's day and maybe encourage someone else to rediscover a piece of themselves too.
Because confidence doesn't always come from some enormous, life changing moment. Sometimes it's twenty quiet minutes to yourself, making something, or doing your nails after an absolutely terrible day. And sometimes it's finding a polish that makes you look at your hands about 47 times because damn, that's a good blue. We understand.
That's where Beauty Art World really started. With color, creativity, confidence, and the simple idea that beautiful little things can make everyday life feel a little better.
Where Art meets craftmanship
Around here, color is taken very seriously. Probably more seriously than it should be.
A new shade might start with a photograph, a flower, a memory, or Christa walking into the room saying, “Okay, hear me out...” From there come experiments, happy accidents, just one more adjustment, and occasionally a color that looked much better in our imagination than it did in the bottle.
That's the art. The craftsmanship is turning that creativity into something we're genuinely proud to put our name on.
Anthony has spent more than a decade in manufacturing, production, operations, and startups, including several years as an Operations Manager in the indie nail polish industry. He's a hustler by nature, with a habit of turning every problem into something to solve and every process into something that can be better.
So while Christa is creating, Anthony's mind usually goes somewhere different. Can we make it consistently? Can we make it better? Is the quality where it should be?
Somewhere between her creativity and his obsession with getting things right, Beauty Art World found its sweet spot.
Of course, give us the perfect pink, a ridiculous blue, a buttery crème, or a shimmer that comes alive in the light and any attempt at objectivity goes right out the window.
The art makes us fall in love with what we're creating. The craftsmanship makes sure it's worthy of reaching you.
A Name with Meaning
We've lost people we desperately wish were here to see what we're building. But their influence never really left it became part of our family, our story, and now this company. Beauty Art World honors where our family came from while we're busy building where it goes next.
Gene Lives within our name
Our name honors Anthony's late father, Gene Bernardo, a pioneer in New Jersey's tattoo industry. Gene founded Body Art World, eventually growing it to five tattoo shops and working alongside more than 25 artists. Anthony spent much of his childhood in those shops, surrounded by art, color, craftsmanship, and the independent spirit of building something of your own.
Gene passed away when Anthony was only 15. Years later, when Anthony and Christa needed a name for their own company, Beauty Art World felt right. It honored Gene and Anthony's roots while giving the name a new life of its own.
Melanie Lives within our image
The other half of the tribute belongs to Christa's late mother, Melanie, who passed away at just 50. A hardworking single mom of two, Melanie also built an incredibly successful career as a Vice President at Smith Barney.
The woman in the Beauty Art World logo was created in her honor, making Melanie quite literally part of the face of our company.
MEET THE TEAM
Christa - Co Founder & Creative Lead
Christa is the creative heart and face of Beauty Art World. A lifelong artist and beauty lover, she's behind our formulations, creative direction, design, marketing, social media, and customer service.
She's usually dreaming up a shade, planning a collection, talking with customers, or convincing herself that we definitely DO NOT need one more pink or blue.
Outside of BAW, Christa is a mom of four and a huge animal lover who's happiest surrounded by family, dogs, cats, plants, good food, and something creative. She genuinely loves meeting the customers and creators who support us, so if you've ever messaged BAW and ended up in a much longer conversation than expected, you probably found Christa.
ANTHONY - Co Founder & Operations
Anthony runs the engine behind Beauty Art World. He brings more than a decade of manufacturing, production, and startup operations experience, including several years as an Operations Manager in the indie nail polish industry.
He oversees operations, production, inventory, finances, quality control, and purchasing, while sharing shipping with Christa. He also has a borderline unreasonable obsession with organization, consistency, and improving things everyone else thought were perfectly fine.
Away from BAW, you'll usually find Anthony boxing, playing chess, or watching football. He's a diehard Los Angeles Rams fan, so Sundays for him is spent glued in front of the TV.
Our Standard
We didn't create Beauty Art World just to make more nail polish. There is already plenty of nail polish in the world.
We created it because we believe handmade indie beauty can be held to an incredibly high standard, and we're stubborn enough to chase that standard every day.
To us, premium isn't a fancy word on a bottle. It's how the formula applies, how consistently it's produced, how quickly it dries, how it's packaged, and how your order is handled. And yes, whether there's a random speck of dust on the cap when you open the box.
We notice that stuff.
Every Beauty Art World polish is handcrafted in small batches and carefully inspected before it leaves our hands. We obsess over the things you hopefully never have to think about, like our processes, quality checks, consistency from bottle to bottle, and the cleanliness of every finished product.
When those things are done right, you don't notice them. That's kind of the point.
We bring that same thinking to inventory and service. Indie polish can sell out quickly, and waiting months for a favorite shade to return isn't much fun. We plan our production carefully and work hard to keep our core shades in stock, while getting most orders out the same or next business day.
If you love it, we want you to actually be able to buy it.
Beauty Art World started with nail polish, but our vision has always been bigger. As we grow, we plan to bring the same obsession with performance, artistry, craftsmanship, and detail into more of the beauty world.
It's an ambitious goal for a little family business. Good.
We're not building Beauty Art World simply to participate in indie beauty. We're building it with the intention of becoming a standard for quality within it.
Our Promise
in the future
Beauty Art World began with nail polish, but our vision has always been bigger. We want to build a beauty company known for exceptional products, genuine craftsmanship, and a level of care our customers can feel.
More than anything, we want to build something that lasts. Having both lost parents who helped shape us far too young, creating something our four children can someday be part of means more to us than we could ever fit onto an About page.
We're still at the beginning of this story, and we're incredibly grateful to everyone choosing to be part of it.
From our family to yours, thank you for supporting Beauty Art World!
Love, Christa