ANASTASIA SOARE

The founder and CEO of Anastasia Beverly Hills on being a beauty trailblazer

What got you into the beauty world in the first place? I always had an interest in beauty, but I got a job as an aesthetician out of necessity. I was an immigrant, and it was work I could do without needing to speak the language. While working, I noticed a glaring gap in the market – no-one was paying attention to their eyebrows. I had this stroke of inspiration that maybe the same golden ratio I learned about in art school could be applied to shaping brows, bringing balance and proportion to my clients’ faces. The concept took off.

Why were you so passionate about brows right from the beginning?

I learned from my professor that if you wanted to change someone’s emotion in a portrait, you start by changing their eyebrows. The right brows can perfectly frame a face and even completely transform a person’s look. That “aha” moment

I see in my clients and in our global community has turned into a passion that fuels me daily.

Some of your very first clients were supermodels, such as Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. How did you meet them? One of my first big clients was an agent who represented many of the great supermodels, so she would send Cindy, Naomi and Stephanie Seymour to come and get their brows done, too. They soon found themselves flooded with compliments – something was different, but no-one could put their finger on it. So they of course came back to me and they brought their friends.

What made you want to create your own collection of brow products?

When my clients would come in, I’d fill in

their brows with my own homemade mix of eyeshadow, aloe and petroleum jelly! There were no products for brows on the market at the time, and when I saw there was an interest, I set out to be the first. People could also use these products at home to achieve the balance and proportion I was creating in the salon.

You were one of the first brands to start using social media. How has Instagram helped you?

Thanks to my daughter Norvina, the current president of Anastasia Beverly Hills. She saw it as an opportunity for the brand early on to expand through social media and build a special relationship with users. Knowing that not everyone would use makeup the same way and that it would need to be customised from face to face, we were excited to showcase the diversity of what everyone was creating.