LONDON — Starting a beauty brand was never in the cards for Greek artist Kris Betta, otherwise known as BettaK.
“I was traveling and I came across an air hostess who was wearing a super, bold pink blush that I wanted to turn into a painting tube for my own personal use, so I took a photo of it to a chemist and they produced it for me,” said the artist-turned-entrepreneur, who has just launched Betta Beauty.
“But I really fell in love with the color and I asked the chemist again if they could make a blush out of it for me. A lot of people started asking me what I was wearing,” she added.
The Betta Beauty lip glosses, highlighters and blushes.
Maria Koutroumpi
The serendipitous moment happened eight months ago, and that small idea has now turned into six products including blushes, highlighters, lip glosses, micellar water, a primer and SPF.
Betta sent out 42 emails to companies that could help her produce the beauty products she had in mind and only one replied, which she’s working solely with now on the vegan and cruelty free products.
Despite being the daughter of a famous Greek singer, Natasa Theodoridou, Betta kickstarted the business with the money she had saved up from selling her art to private clients and sold out exhibitions around Greece in Corfu, Mykonos, Athens and more.
The Betta Beauty primer.
Maria Koutroumpi
“’I’m an artist, I see the face as a canvas, so I really wanted to combine art and beauty, but it’s really important that it’s accessible,” she said, detailing that the pricing of the products was key. The beauty ranges in price from 6.50 euros for a micellar water to 20 euros for the primer and SPF.
Betta Beauty is an extension of Betta’s art practice. The liquid blushes, highlighters and lip glosses are packed in clear tubes that resemble paint tubes with the added nuance of when a tube is squeezed for color.
Betta’s art borrows from Pop Art with vivid colors, characters and messaging, so it was only fitting that she gave her beauty products tongue-in-cheek names connected to her personal life.
Betta Beauty
Maria Koutroumpi
One of the lip glosses is called Mescal 1972 as an ode to the song “Bad Decision” by the American rock band The Strokes and it’s also the name she gave to her first painting. Other names include Lovers on Screen, a phrase that she had written in one of her old journals; Velvet Underground, a nod to another famous American rock band, and Bartender’s Kiss, because her first kiss was with a bartender.
The lip glosses contain vegan silk, hyaluronic acid and diamond dust for a dewy shine.
At some point down the line Betta wants to move the business to London, where she’s based, but for the moment she’s found an all-Greek team to work with.
She hired creative consultant Theodore Pantelopoulos and photographer Maria Koutroumpi to conceptualize the advertising campaigns that touch on early ’90s nostalgia. Betta even makes a surprise cameo in some of the images.
