As an accounting major in UNT's G. Brint Ryan College of Business, Sara Casey ('13) enjoyed treating herself to professional manicures. But regular trips to the salon to beautify her fingernails put a strain on her wallet.
Instead, she'd browse the latest nail art trends on Instagram, select colors from her sizeable personal collection of nail polish bottles and paint her own nails.
"I stumbled across people online who were making their own nail polish. There weren't a lot of people who were doing it at the time, but I thought maybe it was something I could try. So, I bought some supplies and tried it out," she says. "I was just posting things I was making on Instagram, and people really liked them, so I started selling them."
That experimentation more than a decade ago laid the groundwork for what became Cupcake Polish, the Dallas-based company Casey founded. Known for its eye-catching, holographic hues, the polish has been featured in Harper's Bazaar and Women's World magazines, among others.
The company sells 50,000 bottles of polish annually online and at several small retail stores, including the UNT CoLab, the downtown Denton art gallery, boutique and event venue run through the College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism.
Casey credits some of her entrepreneurial success to her time at UNT, where she initially intended to pursue a degree in music education in the College of Music. However, as the daughter of a pair of accountants, the vocalist had a change of heart and decided accounting was a better fit.
She joined the UNT chapter of Delta Sigma Pi, a professional business fraternity, which helped her meet mentors and network. The experience helped her land her first internship and job.
"It had a really big impact on my college career," says Casey, who remains active with the organization through her role on its national board of directors. Now she mentors business students, including one from UNT who started an online business. "It was cool helping him work through some of the initial stumbling blocks."
During her junior year, Casey interned at a Dallas-Fort Worth-area accounting firm, where she continued working after graduation while simultaneously building her nail polish business. "It got to the point where I was selling so many nail polish bottles that I thought maybe I could actually make a decent living out of it."
Becoming an entrepreneur was "scary," she says. "I had a bit of a proven concept because I'd already had some sales. But it was also a little bit of a leap of faith knowing I wasn't going to have a boss to tell me what to do anymore. I would have to wake up and do something every morning that would make me successful."
With Cupcake Polish, Casey says her goal was to create a product different than those available at most big-box retail stores.
"I wanted something that has special effects, something that is really going to make you stand out and something that you don't need to have a lot of skill or artistry to make look great." When sunlight hits nails polished with her products, she says, "It's just beautiful. You just see little rainbows."
Casey and her small team of workers continue to design and hand mix small batches of polish -- adding special pigments, glitter and other elements that create its holographic finish -- at her Dallas warehouse-studio space.
Among Cupcake Polish's best-selling colors are the purple-hued Berry Good Looking and a hot-pink glitter paint called Mr. Mint. "It's a classic," she says. "A lot of people like to change their nail polish color with the seasons and match the trends. We like to release things that are trendy and that match the seasonal colors as well."
Ironically, nowadays, Casey rarely wears nail polish -- except, that is, when she's testing new products and paints each nail a different color.
Business increased for Cupcake Polish during the pandemic as people prioritized self-care, she says, and the company pivoted its marketing strategies to match. Now, it is focused on developing new colors and product fulfillment strategies for 2025.
Casey advises others looking to start a business to "build sustainably and prove the concept as you grow. Also, find something that you're actually passionate about selling because if you don't love it, you're not going to be able to keep doing it."
