The following is an excerpt from the Glow Journal Podcast. You can listen to the full interview with Anastasia Beverly Hills founder and CEO Anastasia Soare now on iTunes and Spotify.
GLOW JOURNAL: I understand that you were raised in Romania, so I would love to start there. What is your very earliest memory of beauty?
ANASTASIA SOARE: Wow, that’s a good one. It’s a very good one. First of all, I used to have a mascara that somebody got for me from Italy, and it was a like a cake- a little compact, a tiny little compact with a cake mascara and with a little brush. You used to put water in it and mix it with the solid product to do your mascara, because we didn’t have a wand mascara like our Lash Brag- that’s the best mascara, by the way. So you had a tiny little brush, almost like a toothbrush but very narrow, and you used to mix with water, the solid product, to do your lashes. That was one [memory].
Second, remember we didn’t have makeup palettes or eye shadow palettes. My mother used to hire a painter that used to restore churches in Italy. He used to [paint] our home, and he used to bring me raw material pigments in blue and green, because in the 70s those were the colours- those sorts of colours, and some gold. I used to mix them with my finger and use them as eyeliner. That was the look. The part in the middle, I had very long, black hair, with eyeliner and that shadow in blue or green. Those are my first memories. I was probably 18 when I used to do that.
But earlier than that, when I was five or six, my mother on every Sunday used to go to the beauty salon. In Romania, Sunday was the busiest day in the salon. They were closed on Monday, because in Romania everybody used to work six days a week in my time. Even schools were six days a week. It was very interesting. I would watch the hairstylist, how they cut her hair, and they would trim my hair a little bit and do a manicure and pedicure, and they would paint my nails. That was when I was maybe five or six.
So you have always been resourceful! You studied art history and architecture, but when you were a child, what did you think that you might be when you grew up?
Living in Romania, we were forced to… no, not forced, the only avenue for us was to go to the library. We had huge libraries. The pride of every family, every intellectual family was to have a big library. So we had a lot of books. We all read books. We didn’t have computers, and on TV there was not too much to watch, because it was just the communist regime that I wasn’t interested in. Sunday and Saturday they used to show old movies, the Hollywood movies from the 50s, and every Sunday I would watch the Russian ballet at the Bolshoi. Then we used to go to the library. That was the only thing that we kind of took pride in- reading, a lot of reading, researching and reading everything you were interested in. We had some incredible teachers, and depending on how good the teacher was they would stimulate you and you had to read books. That was part of your homework over the weekend. You had to read books.
I read that your mother owned and operated a tailoring business after your father passed away when you were quite young, and that you would often help her in the shop- and now that I know how much you would read and that you only had Sundays off, I imagine it was quite a lot! What were some of the lessons that you took from watching your mother run that business?
My mother was an incredible business woman. One of the most important things that I took from her was the client- the love, the attention to detail when she would create for the client. She would do make overs. This was a long time ago. She would bring her hair stylist, and if one of her clients would come in, let’s say she was getting married and the entire family, the mother-in-law, the mother, everybody would get clothes for the wedding. We would do makeovers, so I would be the one that would design the clothes for whoever it was, and that was probably my first introduction to the Golden Ratio for the body, because used to measure and say “Well, her shoulders are smaller than her hips, so we need to add some shoulder pads too.” She didn’t know that that was the Golden Ratio of the body, but she understood by practising, her eye was encoded to recognise that perfect balance of proportion.
So I used to design the clothes. We had hick Vogue magazines, and the client would come in and give me an idea of what she’d like, and then we’d design something similar that would fit her body better.
I used to ask my mother “Mom, you wake up at six o’clock in the morning. And until 12 at night, you don’t stop. I’m too tired. Those clients, don’t they bother you?” And she used to tell me “I love what I do. I love all my clients. And it gives me such joy to see them happy with the final result. I feel like I get excited every time.” And I couldn’t understand, you know, I couldn’t, because I thought “Oh my God, no.” When you are young, those clients are bothering you.”
And then I came here [to the US] and I started working in the salon and my daughter started working at the front desk to help me when she was on vacation. And I remember it, it was just a click in my head when she said one day “Mom, you work so many hours, seven days a week, aren’t you tired? These clients are so demanding.” And I said “Wow, it’s so interesting that you have asked me exactly the same question I asked my mother when I was your age. And she gave me this answer- I love what I do. I promise you, you will do exactly the same when you are my age.” And she said “No, I will never, because I want to have fun.” And guess what? Now I have to tell her “It’s time for you to go home! You work too many hours!” But she loves it!
I learned from my mother to be really passionate for what I do.
You arrived Los Angeles in around 1989 and found work as an esthetician, during which time you began to offer brow shaping as a service upon noticing that no one really paid attention to their brows at the time. I would love to hear more about that. Why were you so passionate about brows? This was so far before actually caring about brows was a trend, so what was it that made you say “Okay, this is going to be the next big thing”?
One of the estheticians who used to give me a facial when I was in Romania, her name was Marianna. She used to give me a facial and before I would start the facial, she would tweeze my eyebrows. For some reason, when I came here [to the US], I started looking at pictures of the movie stars. And in the 90s, Pamela Anderson, everybody wanted to look like her. Gorgeous girl, but her eyebrows were very fine.
Of course! Very fine, almost with a semicircle shape.
Correct! And then I worked on Cindy Crawford, and she had incredible, beautiful eyebrows. I mean, she was the most incredible looking human when I met her in 1990. She was so beautiful. For some reason, the fact that the owner [of the salon] didn’t want to let me do eyebrows… everything kind of clicked together.
I remember my art teacher, when he used to teach me how to draw a portrait or to teach the class, he always emphasised that if you want to draw a portrait and you want to change an emotion, you change the eyebrows. And I thought that’s why I looked in my pictures, at that time, surprised constantly! Because my eyebrows were very round! I looked surprised! So I started going to the library to revisit all the material that my art teacher had us study. First of all, we studied the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, who used the Golden Ratio in all of paintings and the study that he did on the human body. And I thought “I need to do something. I need to fix my eyebrows. What would be the perfect arch for my face?” So slowly, I started understanding how important [the brows were] and applied that mathematical formula.
Once I saw a difference in my face, I thought “Oh my God, this is amazing. I have to do this for everybody. I need to share this with my clients.” So in 1992, I rented a room and I started really focusing on eyebrows a lot. At that time, people didn’t consider the eyebrows a service.
So I used to do their eyebrows without charging. I would do their eyebrows before their facials. Then, slowly, they started getting noticed- people would look at them like “Wow, you look rested. What did you do? It’s something… did you cut your hair? You look so good!” Every woman, when she gets a compliment, she thinks “Okay, I have to go back and do my eyebrows again.”
It started almost like word of mouth. People started sending their mother, their sister, their friends. And then, when I started working with celebrities, actresses and supermodels, then everybody want to look like them and do what every beautiful actress or supermodel does.
In ’94 there was an article in Vogue magazine. Marina Rust, the writer, wrote two pages [on me], and in the same November issue was an article on Kevyn Aucoin’s book ‘Making Faces’. He was such an incredible artist, and he emphasised eyebrows as a very important part of the face. And then, two pages later is this woman Anastasia who is the “best kept secret in Hollywood.” And I think that ignited it. Within a month, every beauty editor of every magazine, people who followed the trends in fashion and in the beauty industry… that ignited the desire, or a curiosity about eyebrows.
And then it took me years. In ’97, I opened the salon in Beverly Hills and I realised that I needed to work on products, because there were no products for eyebrows, and in 2000 we launched the products.
I can’t stress this to people enough- you really did pioneer caring for eyebrows and shaping them. You were the first.
Yes! I invented eyebrows.
You did! It’s funny that you mentioned Cindy Crawford, because other than Cindy Crawford, you had Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour, all of the supermodels of the time were clients. Usually when I speak to a guest who has amassed clients of that level of celebrity, I ask something to the tune of “What was it about your approach that was so different from the rest?” But for you, it obviously was that Golden Ratio. So in as much or as little detail as you wish, what is the Golden Ratio and why is it so significant?
Why it is significant is because the human eye is coded to recognise balance and proportion. Golden Ratio is everywhere- in nature, in architecture, in everywhere you look around. Very few people are perfectly symmetrically proportioned. Let’s talk the face right now and ignore the body.
Eyebrows are one of the most important features on our face. If it’s shaped correctly, according to your bone structure and natural eyebrow shape, it will bring a lot of balance and proportion. It will make your eyes bigger. It will make your cheeks bigger, it will make your nose smaller or bigger, depending on what you need. By fixing your eyebrows or shaping your eyebrows perfectly, then you bring every single element together. It gives you this harmony within your face. We, as people, perceive that as beautiful. To me, beauty is this perfect proportion, this harmony that you create using the perfect eyebrow shape, using the perfect contouring according to your bone structure, and using your eye shadow, everything else you want to add to your face to basically create an illusion of perfection. We are encoded to, we are attracted to that.
Tthat’s the thing, it’s not even a superficial thing. That’s how humans respond to symmetry.
Exactly, there are so many studies where they will tell you and show you how people that are perceived as beautiful, they get more attention. There are so many benefits. You look at yourself and you feel good about yourself, and that gives you a lot of confidence. Forget about the rest of the people!
You mentioned that in 1997 you opened your own salon in Beverly Hills. By ’99 you had developed your product line and that was in the salon, and by 2000 that line was stocked in Nordstrom. I have a few questions about this time, because that was a lot happening simultaneously. Firstly, what made you want to develop a collection rather than solely offering your brow service?
When I would take a client, I would give her the mirror and I would explain to her what I would do, because there were a lot of people who were kind of scared- “Oh my god, what are you going to do to my eyebrows?!” The 90s was a time when a lot of people over tweezed. They didn’t know what to tweeze, and I would show them and shape their eyebrows and they looked so beautiful. I would give them the mirror and they would think “Oh my god, this is beautiful!”
To fill in the gaps where they were missing hair or add some hairs where they needed them, I used to mix eye shadow with Vaseline and aloe vera to create a pomade. Then I used to fill them in. After a while the client would come back and say “My eyebrows looked amazing when I left, but the next morning when I washed my face, it wasn’t the same. What am I going to do for those three weeks? If I go out, I want to look that perfect.” So I knew that I needed to create products.
So, I went to Italy and I worked with the lab, and I start creating products from the beginning that would solve these problems. Working with clients, everybody has different hair types- thick, thin, light, dark. So I would create products that would solve a problem. This is how I wanted to create products.
The fact that you were creating a pomade in the 90s- even now, I think pomades are confusing to some people!
It’s very interesting that you say that. I created the pomade, and it was so overwhelming for the everyday client. She preferred the pencil because it made more sense. And because the technology wasn’t very advanced, we had the pomade but it wasn’t waterproof. So the only people that loved the pomade in 1990 were professional makeup artist. So what we did, we pulled it out [of the collection] because the everyday customer felt intimidated. And then, of course, we relaunched it when social media came in, Instagram. We had such a big presence and it was easy to do a tutorial, to teach clients how to use it correctly. Because of the new technology, we were able to make a pomade that was waterproof.
This leads me into my next question because brow shaping, and really just colour cosmetics catering to the eyebrows specifically, was still a completely foreign concept in the year 2000 when you were picked up by Nordstrom. What was the initial response to the brand like, given that you couldn’t use social media to educate people in the way that you can now?
Well, I designed the brush number 7 more than 20 years ago- the precision, double ended brush. I didn’t know about patenting all of this. I just didn’t know. I designed the brush angle just to fill in the eyebrow with precision, and every time I used to tell my clients that they should fill in and use a disposable spoolie brush. And then I thought “Wow, well maybe I should do one brush with the spoolie on one side and with the angle to apply as well.” So I worked with the manufacturer and I started this concept. Every product I made, I needed to make a tool to apply it that would give you the absolute best results. So we had powders, pencils, we had highlighters, we had the pomade, tweezers, scissors, stencils. Those were the products that we started with from the beginning. And the clear brow gel! An essential.
It took me a lot of work. I used to work five days a week in the salon, and then for two days I would travel around the country to Nordstroms to teach the clients how to use the products, because at that time, in 2000, to use a pencil or powder in your eyebrow was kind of a new thing. I would show them, and they would see immediate results. And this is how it all started.
Aside from that brow collection that you’ve just mentioned, you also launched with a full collection of colour cosmetics, but then had to pull that line to focus on the brows…
We didn’t have the money! I have this, this is funny, I have the collection here! I will send you pictures. Isn’t that amazing? The lipstick, the powder, the loose powder… everything was custom made and it was just so expensive. Even the foundation bottle was custom made and so expensive. I didn’t know at the time that we couldn’t keep making it because it’s too expensive.
So you had to pull that line from Nordstrom just to focus on the brows. You’ve obviously since brought back colour cosmetics, but can you talk me through that time and how hard the decision must have been to pull part of the line?
It was very, very difficult because I realised we needed to pay the makeup artists that are in the stores. I thought “I’m gonna sell you my products, and that’s it.” Well, no. It didn’t work like that. I had to make the conscious decision- do I keep the eyebrows?
We had brow studios, so the esthetician used to teach the customer how to use the brow products. That was a wonderful thing, as was having Nordstrom as a partner, but we pulled the makeup. We lost a lot of money, but I thought “I believe in the eyebrow [collection]. Let’s focus on eyebrows, and later on we could expand when we feel that we have enough money we’ll expand into makeup.”
The right decision in the long run.
Yes. Social media, I think, helped us to make that happen.
Well let’s talk about social media, because you were really the first brand to start using social media to your advantage as a business. As it stands, you have 20.2 million followers on Instagram. How has the rise of digital, YouTube as well which is obviously very important in beauty, how has that changed the way that you operate?
I think social media, Instagram and YouTube was amazing because it created a desire for every woman to learn how to do makeup. I think women before [social media] didn’t use that much makeup, because they didn’t know. They didn’t know how to apply a foundation, how to fill in their eyebrows, how to do contouring. And all those things, they were really were able to do over a tutorial on Instagram. It was absolutely incredible. I think it was really revolutionary to be able to teach by using a social media.
Despite the accessibility of tutorials and how revolutionary social media has been, I imagine choosing the right brow product can still be rather confusing and potentially intimidating for some people. In as much or as little detail as you wish, how do we choose the right Anastasia Beverly Hills product for our eyebrows?
It depends! We have so many products and every product is designed for a specific eyebrow and specific colour. We have a huge range of colours- 11 colours. I wanted to have a product for every single client that walked in my door when I opened the salon.
I think it’s important to really do the search, go on our website and read everything about what every product is for. If you read our concept on our website or our Instagram, you need to learn the first step of golden ratio- where your eyebrow should begin, end, and what is the highest part. Then you connect those three marks, and you have to decide what are the perfect products for you.
Always, always start with very little product. You can always build it up. Don’t use too much because it will be very difficult, your eyebrows will be too dark. Be light handed. It’s difficult to take it out. Always start to fill in from the middle of the highest part of your eyebrow towards the end. And then with what is leftover, go to the beginning and you fill in the beginning of the eyebrow. This creates an ombre look. Never make the eyebrow too dark, because it’s going to give you a very harsh look.
The best is to use two products- one to shade the entire eyebrow and one to detail, to create hair strokes. Why you have to do that is because we want to mimic a full, natural eyebrow. Because of the light, the hair in the eyebrow creates a shadow on the skin, so for that shading you use a lighter colour than your hair, or you apply it with less pressure. You shade all over the eyebrow, then you take Brow Wiz, Brow Definer or Dip Brow Pomade, and you create strokes of hairs. You start from the middle towards the end first, then what is leftover you apply lightly in front. This is how you create a ombre eyebrows.
Then you take the highlighter and you create a line underneath that defines the eyebrow and highlights the brow bone. You could use a concealer, whatever is easiest for you. Always brush with the spoolie to blend. You want the most natural look, that’s very important.
When I design a product, I have to think of every single aspect that will give you, with ease, the perfect eyebrows.
You moved to Los Angeles and cemented yourself as part of the beauty industry upwards of 30 years ago now, and have sat at the helm of your brand for over 20 years. Over that time, what have been some of the biggest changes that you have seen within the beauty industry?
When I came here in the nineties, people in LA used to get their makeup done if they were going to the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Emmys- awards shows and special events. They would get their makeup done by a professional. Now, everybody knows how to do their hair, their makeup, their eyebrows. There are very few people that use professional makeup artists, which I think is incredible because I think what makes you beautiful, makes you powerful. A woman that feels like she’s beautiful, she’s all put together… high heels and makeup are the perfect formula in my
book.
And what changes do you think we can expect to see over the next five or so years?
I think, right now, everybody is refining their skills. I think in the last five, six years, they were intimidated. I remember when we launched contouring- some people were just… wow. Now, they realise [how to contour]. As you start using and using, your skills get better and better. I have people on my feed on Instagram that I’m amazed by myself. The level of artistry that they have, it’s absolutely incredible. And I’m talking about girls that are 14, 15 right up to, I don’t know- there is no limit for the age! So I think there’s a totally different level of artistry. I think everybody has a better way and they understand how to use the power of the makeup. This is what I see.
Secondly, unfortunately, because of this pandemic, the traffic in the store is low. People are shopping more online. We’re getting used to communication and doing things online. I think we still need to adjust to that. But I hope to God and pray to God that this isn’t going to be forever, and we’ll be able to go out and socialise and have a normal life. But unfortunately a lot of companies went through a very hard time and… I don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t have a crystal ball. I hope we’ll have a vaccine and, and our life will go back to normal.
My final question- Anastasia, what’s next for Anastasia Beverly Hills?
Everything closed down in March. Immediately, I think my immigrant spirit of being resourceful and coming up with ideas and being really flexible kicking in. Within 10 days, I got my executive team together and we started doing virtual consultations on our Instagram with the team. We have a field team, and they go to a bootcamp where they learn everything. So it was already easy for us to start [online consultations] because the team was so trained to do that. So immediately, in 10 days, we started doing virtual consultation, masterclasses, one on one consultations.
It was incredible to see the growth we got online because of that. Now, all of the stores have opened. Of course the traffic is not the way it was, but we still have customers in the stores. Unfortunately they cannot touch the products, but we are in a position where we are ready every week. You need to adapt to the situation. You need to be flexible. You need to be resourceful. And we need to watch every single day, because whatever we talked about today, I don’t know if by the end of the week it’s going to be the same. So you need to be really very flexible and versatile. I think this is what we’ve learned- what I’ve learned.
To listen to the full interview with Anastasia Soare of Anastasia Beverly Hills, subscribe to the Glow Journal podcast now on iTunes or Spotify
