Sharmadean Reid: Founder of WAH Nails, Beautystack and 39BC

Sharmadean Reid MBE is a British entrepreneur, writer and creative consultant whose career has moved through beauty, technology, media, publishing and consumer products. She is best known for founding WAH Nails, Beautystack, The Stack World and the bathing and fragrance company 39BC.

Sharmadean Reid’s work is often described through broad ideas such as women’s empowerment and community. A more useful account looks at the businesses she created, the problems they attempted to solve, the investment they attracted and the changes that followed when individual ventures reached the end of a particular stage.

Studio Alexandria is relevant to the current stage of her career because 39BC is her active beauty and bathing venture. Administrative details such as correspondence addresses and identity-verification providers are not necessary for a public biography.

Reid became a director of Studio Alexandria Ltd on 11 March 2025. The company remains active. Companies House also records her as the person with significant control, holding more than 50 per cent but less than 75 per cent of its shares and voting rights, with the right to appoint or remove directors.

Companies House records identify her as Sharmadean Alexandria Reid and state that she was born in May 1984. She is 42 years old as of July 2026. She is British and lives in England.

Education and Early Creative Work

Sharmadean Reid studied Fashion Communication and Promotion at Central Saint Martins. The University of the Arts London biography identifies her as a Central Saint Martins graduate and records her later work across WAH Nails, Beautystack and The Stack World.

Her early career combined fashion, publishing and brand work. While still at university, she created WAH as a magazine and cultural project aimed at young women. A career account published by The Stack World states that WAH began in 2006 as a hip-hop magazine for girls.

This background helps explain the direction of her later businesses. Reid did not approach beauty only as a service industry. She treated it as part of visual culture, identity, media and community.

WAH Nails and the Growth of Nail Art

Sharmadean Reid opened WAH Nails in London in 2009. The salon became closely associated with detailed nail art, youth culture and a visual identity that differed from traditional beauty businesses.

WAH combined a physical service with publishing, events, social media and collaborations. The brand gained attention because customers were not simply choosing a colour from a standard salon menu. Nail designs were presented as creative work with recognisable artists and styles.

The official 39BC founder biography describes WAH Nails as a salon that brought editorial aesthetics into beauty culture. University of the Arts London also identifies WAH Nails as the business for which Reid first became widely known.

WAH’s importance should not be exaggerated into a claim that one salon created the modern nail-art market. Its documented contribution was to place nail art within fashion and youth media at a time when image-led social platforms were becoming increasingly important to beauty businesses.

Beautystack and Beauty Technology

Reid founded Beautystack in 2017. The business was designed as a visual booking platform for independent beauty professionals. Users could find an image of a treatment, identify the professional who created it and book the service.

The model addressed a practical problem. Beauty professionals regularly displayed their work on social media but often handled appointments through messages, screenshots and separate payment systems. Beautystack attempted to connect discovery, attribution, booking and payment in one service.

A British Vogue report on Beautystack explained the “see it, like it, book it” model and confirmed that the company raised £4 million in seed funding in 2019. The round was led by Index Ventures.

TechCrunch also reported that LocalGlobe had supported an earlier pre-seed round and that the platform was intended to help independent professionals manage bookings while receiving clearer credit for their work.

The funding was a significant milestone, but investment should not be confused with profit or personal wealth. Venture capital is company financing provided in exchange for an ownership interest and expectations of future growth.

From Beautystack to The Stack World

During the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Reid expanded the company’s focus beyond beauty bookings. In 2021, she launched The Stack World as a media, membership and events platform centred on women’s professional and economic lives.

A Sifted interview published at the launch described The Stack World as a multimedia company combining editorial content, events and membership. Reid connected the new direction with the pressures faced by beauty businesses during repeated closures.

The Stack World’s official About page states that its mission is to increase women’s economic participation by helping members connect, learn and buy services from one another.

The platform continued to publish business, culture and self-development material in 2026. It has also organised discussions and events focused on work, wellbeing and women’s economic opportunities.

The 2025 Winding-Up of Beautystack Limited

A balanced account must also include the legal position of the original company. The Gazette records that Beautystack Limited, which traded as The Stack World, entered a voluntary winding-up process in April 2025 and that joint liquidators were appointed.

This does not mean that every brand, website or piece of intellectual property connected with Reid disappeared. The Stack World website remained active afterwards. However, it does mean that the earlier company structure reached an end and should not be described as though it continued unchanged.

The winding-up is an important part of Reid’s business history because entrepreneurship includes closures and restructuring as well as launches and funding rounds. Omitting that development would produce an incomplete account.

New Methods for Women

Sharmadean Reid published New Methods for Women through Penguin Life in June 2024. The official Penguin page describes the book as a collection of methods covering work, relationships, creativity, community and personal development.

The book draws on Reid’s experience as a founder, parent, consultant and community builder. It argues that women should not focus only on adapting to existing systems, but should also consider how those systems can be changed.

Different Penguin editions have used slightly different descriptions of the number of lessons or essays. It is therefore safer to describe the book by its themes rather than rely on a single number in promotional copy.

The book extended Reid’s career beyond business operations and into long-form writing. It also gave a clearer structure to ideas that had appeared throughout her earlier work on independence, purpose and women’s economic power.

Launching 39BC

Reid later founded 39BC, a bathing, body-care and fragrance company. The business is built around the history and ritual of bathing, with products presented through scent, texture and storytelling.

The company’s official founder page describes 39BC as Reid’s current focus and connects it with her earlier interest in designing complete cultural and sensory experiences rather than selling isolated products.

39BC represents a return to physical beauty products after the technology and media stages of Reid’s career. It is also different from WAH Nails because it is centred on home ritual and personal care rather than salon services.

As with any young consumer brand, its long-term commercial position cannot be determined from launch material alone. The useful fact is that Reid has returned to beauty through a new product category and a new company identity.

MBE and University Recognition

Reid was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the nail and beauty industry. The official government announcement identifies her as an MBE recipient.

This corrects conflicting biographies that place the honour in a later year or incorrectly call it a British Empire Medal. An MBE and a BEM are separate honours.

In 2024, University of the Arts London made Reid an Honorary Fellow. Its announcement of the 2024 honoraries recognised her work in beauty, technology, media and women’s professional development.

A Balanced View of Sharmadean Reid’s Career

Sharmadean Reid’s career includes both visible successes and difficult business transitions. WAH Nails developed a distinctive place in British beauty culture. Beautystack raised substantial investment and attempted to create better tools for independent professionals. The Stack World expanded that work into media and membership, while 39BC returned her attention to products and ritual.

The record also includes the voluntary winding-up of Beautystack Limited in 2025. That outcome should not erase the ideas or products created by the company, but it should be included alongside fundraising and awards.

Her strongest recurring theme is the relationship between culture and ownership. WAH gave nail artists a more visible creative identity. Beautystack attempted to connect images with the professionals behind them. The Stack World focused on women’s networks and economic participation. Her book turned those concerns into a broader personal framework.

Claims about her exact net worth are not supported by reliable public evidence. Company funding, brand attention and award recognition cannot be converted directly into personal wealth.

Conclusion

Sharmadean Reid is a British founder, writer and creative consultant whose career has crossed beauty services, technology, media, publishing and consumer products.

She created WAH Nails, raised venture capital for Beautystack, launched The Stack World, published New Methods for Women and later founded 39BC. She was appointed an MBE in 2015 and became a University of the Arts London Honorary Fellow in 2024.

Her business record is best understood as a series of connected experiments rather than one uninterrupted success story. Each venture has examined how beauty, media, community and ownership can be organised differently, particularly for women working in creative and service industries.

Sources

• Companies House: Studio Alexandria Ltd ownership and control
• Companies House: Sharmadean Reid’s appointments and date of birth
• University of the Arts London: Sharmadean Reid biography
• GOV.UK: Queen’s Birthday Honours 2015
• British Vogue: Beautystack’s £4 million funding round
• Sifted: Launch of The Stack World
• The Stack World: Mission and company story
• The Gazette: Beautystack Limited winding-up resolution
• Penguin: New Methods for Women
• 39BC: Founder biography
• UAL: 2024 honorary awards