Anastasia Soare

Born in Romania, Soare immigrated to Los Angeles in 1989. As a 32-year-old single mother, unable to speak English or to get approval for a credit card, Soare, who studied art and architecture back home, got her start in the U.S. as an aesthetician. She noticed early on that women in America didn’t seem to pay much attention to their eyebrows. Soare gained a following that included supermodels Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Stephanie Seymour. In 1992 she began renting out a room in Beverly Hills and working seven days a week, independently offering her eyebrow services, as well as waxing and facials. Five years later her eyebrow empire had grown large enough that she could open her flagship Beverly Hills Salon. In 2000 she launched her initial line of products, which focused entirely on eyebrows. At first she struggled to get her fillers and brushes into stores; the items were initially carried in only 20 Nordstrom locations. But with a cultlike following, the brand slowly began to grow. Upon the urging of her daughter and the company’s president, Claudia Soare, Anastasia Soare took her brand to Instagram in 2013. Soare now sells 485 products—a line that extends beyond makeup for brows—in over 2,000 stores around the world, as well as online.