Eyebrow Queen Anastasia Soare's top tips to get perfect brows

Ms Anastasia Soare is a problem solver.

The 60-year-old US billionaire businesswoman's eponymous brand Anastasia Beverly Hills began with a Beverly Hills salon in 1997, with a focus on eyebrows.

Ms Soare, who was born in Romania, wanted to fill a void in the beauty market when she realised that "back in the 90s, no one was paying attention to the eyebrows".

It is hard to imagine now, but back in the pre-Instagram era, there were no products made specifically for the arches either.

Also known as the Eyebrow Queen, Ms Soare's training in art school gave her the unconventional set of tools she used to formulate her patented hit method of brow-shaping: the golden ratio, which has become a popular point of reference.

She said: "I remember when my teacher taught me how to change the emotion of the person I was sketching by simply changing the shape of the eyebrows. I was also introduced to the concept of the golden ratio."

Using this method, Ms Soare is able to factor in the bone structure to sketch out the best shape for every face to achieve perfect symmetry.

"When you do portraits, you shade to create dimensions. That's the (same) reason when people use make-up," she said.

For the beauty mogul, that was her "a-ha" moment - when she realised that everyone has a different face and hence would use make-up differently.

Now, she presides over her own beauty empire - Anastasia Beverly Hills is available at all Sephora stores - and has amassed a huge social media following of 18 million on her brand's Instagram account, which she manages with her daughter.

In her two-decade career, the chief executive has tended to the arches of celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, Penelope Cruz and "all of the Kardashians".

Here are some of her insights:

On always taking a photo before you contour

Ms Soare suggested taking a photo of your face before drawing an oval on the photo to identify which parts of the face to contour.

Always have three zones in mind: The hairline to the eyebrow, the eyebrow to the base of the nose and cheek, and the base of the nose and cheek to the chin should always be equal.

She also recommended using a dark contour product to create the illusion of a deeper crease as Asian eyelids tend to be more flat.

On the biggest eyebrow mistake even celebrities make

She adamantly cautioned against removing hair too enthusiastically. If you got a little tweezer-happy, Ms Soare suggests filling in your brows and creating tiny hair-like strokes with a brow pencil.

On avoiding harsh and heavy-handed brows

To ensure you do not over-fill your brows, always use feather-like strokes whenever you apply any colour to your brows and blend out with a spoolie.

On the Anastasia Beverly Hills product you need to try if you're new to the brand

She recommended going with the Brow Wiz eyebrow pencil to achieve perfect brows and use it along with the wax Brow Primer that is great for controlling the stray hairs, which can be a problem for Asian brows.

On the most dramatic eyebrow transformation she has witnessed

"Kim Kardashian used to have really bushy eyebrows. If you look at her pictures from a few years back, her face didn't change but her eyebrows did," said Ms Soare.

On eyebrow stamps

She revealed she bought an eyebrow stamp when she went to China and tried to use it but it does not work because stamps are for flat surfaces. Ms Soare recommended using a pencil instead of a stamp because you have better control.

On eyebrow trends

Ms Soare said you should not change your natural eyebrow shape and it should always follow the bone structure.

That said, you can fill your brows with a light or dark colour or in the ombre style, depending on what is trendy.

This article first appeared on Her World Online (www.HerWorld.com)