How Anastasia Soare became the "Queen of Eyebrows" and built a billion-dollar brand

Anastasia Soiree is known as the queen of eyebrows. Yes, there's only one queen when it comes to eyebrows. She's the founder and CEO of Anastasia Beverly Hills. She works on the brows of stars from Jennifer Lopez, Cindy Crawford, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey. Listen, you know a famous person of brows, chances are she has done it. She opened her Beverly Hills salon back in 1997. Three years later, she launched her company's first eyebrow product line. Her new memoir reveals her personal journey from escaping communism in Romania to revolutionizing the beauty industry. It is called Raising Brows. I love the title. My story building a billion dollar with a B beauty empire and first on CBS Mornings. We're happy to say that Anastasia Soiree joins us here in the studio. Congrats, congrats, bravo, bravo, bravo. Thank you, Gail. I love this book so much because you say this, great brows don't happen by chance, they happen by appointment. Brows are the one thing you can get into shape without working out. Brows are a lifestyle, not a trend. Who knew that brows could end up making you so much money? Well, I guess I was the only one. You were the only one. Yes. But back as a kid in Romania, you were taking an art class and in that art class, you learned what about brows? That when you want to change an emotion, when you draw a portrait, you have to change eyebrows. Yes. So that was the, when I came here in the nineties, I bought a camera, disposable camera, and I realized that my, I look surprised because I was a victim of the seventies and eighties over tweeze eyebrow round. And yes, then. So you come here. Yes. You don't really speak the language. You don't really have any money. You come from very humble beginnings. You come to join your husband. What was your plan? Well, I had no plan. I just dreamt to come to America. The land of freedom. Yeah. Land of freedom. Because I came from a communist regime, a very terrible era in the eighties where we couldn't, the food was scarce. We didn't have electricity. It was very bad in Romania. But the first thing you thought is I got to get a job. You get a job and you're working in a salon. Correct. And I realized that nobody in the nineties paid attention to eyebrows. So I fixed my own eyebrows and I thought I need to share this with all my clients. Yes. This is such an important thing that nobody ever thought. And, uh, based on what I learned in art class, uh, golden ratio applying. What's the golden ratio? So if you look, I am simplified the theory, but when you look in a mural above middle of inside of the nostril, your eyebrow should start right there. Outside corner of the nose, corner of the eyes. That should be the end of the eyebrow and tip of your nose, middle of the iris. This should be the highest spot. You connect the three points, making sure that the inner part should be lower to create a nice arch. And that should be, I created stencil and products to create the perfect. I know, but then you're off to the But the journey to get there though, on Sasha, you have famous people who come in and you start getting press. You start getting publicity. You learned English watching the Oprah Winfrey show. I know. And then you end up in Oprah as one of your clients. Was that, that was the most, my Oscar moment. This is how I call it in the book. It was phenomenal. I mean, doing her eyebrow life on TV was, but nobody believed that you could make a living out of doing brows. Including the landlord that didn't want to rent me the space because he thought that shaping eyebrows, I will not be able to pay the rent in Beverly Hills. And you said, just give me a shot. Just give me a shot. Give me a shot. I will not take no as an answer. Even if I needed a credit card, they didn't want to give me a credit card because I had no history on a bank and in banking system. And I will not leave the bank until I got the five. No, you literally beg, but this is the thing you said, no matter what it takes, your, your car was so raggedy, the valet wouldn't even park it. But, but now here you are Anastasia a billion dollar company and your message is what? Never give up is never too late. I was 31 when I came in this country. I was 40 when I started my own business. Never give up, never give up. Don't take no as an answer. Be agile. Always. You find the solution. Do not ever give up. Yeah. You are living proof of that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Queen of eyebrows. Anastasia Soiree is the founder and CEO of Anastasia Beverly Hills with celebrity clients like Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, and Heidi Klum, just to name a few. She opened her Beverly Hills salon in 1997 and launched its first product just a few years later. Now she's out with a new memoir, raising brows, my story of building a billion dollar beauty empire. And it, she shares her remarkable journey to the top Anastasia Soiree joins us now and Gail is back because this is such a great segment. I love it. I'm crushing Kelly. She's been raving about this book all morning. I know I came into this book is so good because her story is so good. So I said, can I please sit in on this segment, please? So I'm here. It's amazing. Thank you. Well, I mean, I have to kick off because your story is so impressive, you know, growing up in Romania, so much of what you talk about in the book is never give up. What do you think about your background growing up there instilled you with the values to succeed in such a rough transition? Well, I think living in Romania in a communist regime and with having a family that was emigrant in Romania kind of made me resilient. I learned so much about never give up and don't take no as an answer. And you always have to find a way to make it happen. You have to do it. And it takes a lot of power. I'm not saying it's easy, but I think that this is what I learned. And as well, going in school, like I was talking with Gail and my art teacher talking about golden ratio and how to draw a portrait and keeping in mind that eyebrow could change an emotion, I think and change your face, your look, it brings a harmony to the face. This is the thing. We all have brows. Yes. You know, some of our brows look better than others because I'm a person that had no brows and you say you can make brows on anybody. But why would you think that brows because so many people said your ex-husband even said you're at the time that's not going to work. A salon owner said that's not going to work. Why would you think that you could make a living doing brow? Well, because it's a it's a formula. The human is encoded to recognize balance and proportion and then well-shaped eyebrows brings a harmony to the face. And everyone will look at you, even yourself. And you think, wow, I look pretty. I look great. I look powerful. I am powerful. So I think beauty can do. Yes. But in the early days, when you were trying to convince people, you were literally saying, I'll do your brows for free for like two or three years. I did eyebrows for free because it wasn't considered in the early 90s a service. Eyebrow service. Yeah. So interesting. It's everywhere now. Yes. Practically speaking, when you got to L.A., you didn't speak English. You couldn't get a credit card. How do you overcome that? Well, I surround myself with people that I could learn. I always said, I don't know. Can you help me? And, you know, the frankliness that was the can you help me first? Can you help me? I don't know. I don't know the financial system. I don't know anything. I don't know how to write a check. I want to learn. So I was willing to learn and use that skill that I had. And people are saying that I invented eyebrows. I think I master the eyebrows. I master my craft. I worked hours and hours to be the best that I could be. And I think it paid off. Clearly it did. Yeah. Because now you run a billion dollar company. You also, you know, credit to your favorite daughter, Claudia, your only daughter, Claudia. Yeah. Because, you know, so it's you and Claudia really sort of against the world. And then your mom comes over from Romania. But at one point, Claudia is working in the salon. You hire her, you fire her. Then you hire your own daughter. Yes. Because I needed to teach her a lesson. She was late. So I needed to teach her a lesson. Business is serious. So I rehire her because she was so good in what she was doing. And then in 2012, we were traveling so much around the country. We work seven days a week. And she came one day and said, Mom, maybe we don't need to travel that much. Is this app Instagram? Yeah. Maybe we should have a present. This was late 2011. We're the first cosmetic brand with a presence on social media. I'm curious. You came from a communist country where this kind of business would not be possible. And we live in a country here, capitalist, where a lot of young people don't believe in capitalism. What do you say to those young people? This is the best country on the planet. I could go anywhere around the globe and I could never build what I build in this country. And you still could do that. You still. And that's why I wrote this book, because I want to to give the confidence to everyone to they are able if they have a dream, they are able to do it. But it's a lot of work, resilience, discipline, focus. But you could do it in this country. Kelly, can I just point out to how she's dressed? Because back in the early days, she would come up. I met her through Oprah because she and Oprah have a thing now. But she would come in a black dress and pearls and high heels. And I go, why does this girl come dressed like and I'd say, where are you going? And she goes nowhere. But you always believed in dressing the part always believe because you have to present. I'm customer centered by that. I always believe in giving the best customer service to my client. And and you have to be dressed. If you want to be taken serious. I thought that I have to be dressed up. And Gail always was. I know we're sitting in tennis shoes and jeans. I was fascinated by that amazing, amazing outfit today. And I also love the black. You can never go wrong with black. How do our brows look? Perfect. I was just everybody's credit to our makeup. All right, Anastasia. Sorry. Thank you so much. And Gail, thank you for coming back. Thanks for having me. Raising brows goes on sale tomorrow wherever you buy your books. Thank you so much.