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The Empress Of Eyebrows
If she was suffering from jet lag, Anastasia Soare didn't show it as she deftly plucked and waxed yet another set of eyebrows into perfect arches. The so-called "Empress of Eyebrows" had taken the red-eye to New York where she'd tamed some very famous brows for the Tony Awards. The next day, she was in the La Jolla salon that bears her name, working her way through a long list of clients eager to look like Soare's Hollywood A-listers: Elle Macpherson, Stephanie Seymour, Kim Cattrall, Naomi Campbell, and did I mention Oprah? This afternoon, Soare has transformed the virgin eyebrows of Rebecca Balogh, a 23-year-old La Jolla bartender who had never had her brows shaped before. "I have the most perfect eyebrows!" Balogh exclaims as she appraises herself in the mirror. "It's kind of freaky!"
Soare's pursuit of perfect eyebrows began 17 years ago when she immigrated to the United States from Romania. Trained as an artist and aesthetician, she got her start at a small salon on L.A.'s Melrose Place. "I became obsessed with eyebrows," she recalls, even researching eyebrow shapes at the public library. "I wanted to give the perfect look." Perfect meant finding the right arch in proportion to a woman's facial features and bone structure, the golden proportion she had learned about in architecture classes.
Just seven months after her arrival, Soare was raising eyebrows. Model Talisa Soto was so taken with her own golden arches that she returned with a van-full of supermodels after a photo shoot: Cindy Crawford, Stephanie Seymour...Soare had no idea who they were. "I was thinking because I was just fresh from Romania, fresh from the boat, is everyone from L.A. that gorgeous?
"What have you done?" asked the salon owner when they left. "I thought, 'Oh, my God, I've done something wrong. I'll be fired.'" What she had done, it turned out, was revolutionize the American eyebrow, transforming the "Brooke-Shields-bushy-eyebrow look" into a sleeker, more sophisticated shape - the "Arch de Triomphe" as the Wall Street Journal would later write. Soare's business grew by word of mouth (or brow by brow), and she eventually opened her own salon in Beverly Hills. A makeup line and brow kits would follow. Her eyebrow empire has expanded to "brow studios" in 45 Nordstrom stores around the country, two New York City Sephora boutiques, as well as Japan and France. Soare will launch studios in Greece this month, and later, in England. She and her local partner, Ranch resident Gina Poage, are eyeing another North County location, possibly in Del Mar.
Soare waxes philosophical when she talks about her work. "The eyebrows frame your face - they create a balance and harmony. It's something we can change slightly and yet make such a dramatic difference." An added bonus - the right shape can take ten years off your face, like a brow lift, but without surgery.
Arch enemy number one, in Soare's book, is over-tweezing - the biggest mistake women make. Think Jean Harlow, who, Soare says, looked 40 years old in her 20s. Thicker eyebrows, she insists, are feminine and elegant. Remember Ava Gardner, Sophia Loren and Liz Taylor in the 50s? "Those brows," she says emphatically, "will never go out of style."
Arch enemy number two: Soare says you can't just pick a pair of eyebrows out of the latest fashion magazine - they have to work with your face. In other words, what works for Madonna or Penelope Cruz, other Soare clients, may not work for you. No cookie cutter approach for the brow queen of Beverly Hills. "Never! Never! Never!" she exclaims, furrowing her own perfect brows. "It's like I want every client to have the same personality. Boring. No!"
Back to Balogh - a bit red and puffy after her brow makeover, she's asked if all the waxing, plucking, and tweezing were worth it. "Are you kidding me?" she asks. "I had the number-one eyebrow lady doing my first brows!"
Soare is in town less frequently these days, but all her La Jolla brow artists are personally trained. They will pluck and powder your brows for $45 on the first visit, $35 thereafter. And if you want to do it yourself, Soare's brow kits will set you back from $38 to $85. Perhaps a small price to pay for brow wow.
(858/459-9800) - Andrea Naversen, photos by Paul Andrews
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