If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then eyebrows are the drapes; at least that’s what Alicia Sanchez would tell you.
Dressed in flowing tan slacks and a black, lace-trimmed shirt with a shadow of tight brown curls flowing to her shoulders, Sanchez sits on a stool overlooking Naples resident Andrea Steffy. Steffy, who works for one of the public relations firms that promotes Naples’ famous Winter Wine Festival, lies prone on a massage table at the Ritz-Carlton, Naples’ lavish spa. Sanchez bends over her and gently spreads a thin coat of honey-colored wax under one of her eyebrows. With a single movement she presses a small cloth strip into the wax. Then with a practiced flex of her wrist Sanchez yanks it and some unwanted hairs away.
Photo by TRISTAN SPINSKI, Daily News
Alicia Sanchez, regional sales and training manager in the southeast for Anastasia of Beverly Hills, ran the eyebrow sculpting seminar at the Ritz-Carlton Resort in Naples - working on the employees and then supervising them in turn as they worked on each other.
But Sanchez, 22, isn’t just waxing Steffy’s sparse brown brows. She’s sculpting them, nudging them sternly into a sweeping arc that seems to produce eyebrows on Steffy’s face for the first time. Like kohl-lined eyes or glossed lips, the brows suddenly emerge as a striking element on Steffy’s face. Her drapes are definitely looking good.
Sanchez, who came to Naples last week to teach brow shaping to the Ritz’s resident technicians, is the Southeast regional sales and training manager for Los Angeles-based eyebrow guru Anastasia Soare. Known as “the definitive eyebrow expert,” Anastasia has waxed, plucked and powdered so many big-name celebrities that she’s become one herself. Calling her signature technique “an instant facelift,” Anastasia stresses matching the brows to her client’s face. It has earned her a loyal following of A-list clients like Oprah Winfrey, Claudia Schiffer and Madonna who turn to the “eyebrow queen” for sleek, natural looking brows.
My own eyebrows had started the day looking average at best. One of 10 Naples residents invited to preview the new eyebrow shaping service ($60) that was recently added to the salon's extensive menu. I left my 2000 Toyota Corolla to a friendly valet at the Ritz’s front door and made my way through the rose garden (yes, rose garden) and into the hotel’s 51,000 square foot spa.
Although the Ritz-Carlton's salon is open to the public, the spa is restricted to hotel guests and paying members and costs an astounding $50,000+ to join plus yearly maintenance costs and the a la carte prices of the services members purchase. Today the spa has around 200 registered members and a waiting list of almost 100 people.
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“Our point of difference is the structure of the face,” explains Sanchez as I sit in a dim treatment room, preparing to undergo the Anastasia procedure. “It’s all about measuring the bone structure of the face. Your eyebrows should fit your face, not Sally Jo’s.”
Photo by TRISTAN SPINSKI, Daily News
Thao Tram, a leisure reservations agent at the Ritz Carlton-Resort, gets her eyebrows shaped by Kym Fulton, an esthetician at the Ritz-Carlton, on Friday, August 10, 2007. The two women took part in an eyebrow sculpting seminar at the hotel spa that was taught by a representative of Anastasia Soare - arguably the definitive voice in eyebrow sculpting whose spa in Beverly Hills caters to many Hollywood's "A-listers".
The structure of my face, I learn, is small. I have small eyes, small brows and a generally small head.
“You have a petite arch,” Sanchez says matching me to one of Anastasia’s four eyebrow stencils cut into clear, flexible plastic. She also informs me that I’ve been over-plucking.
“You need to let them grow back in,” she chides with a smile.
As I watch her progress in a mirror, Sanchez begins my shaping with a series of measurements that are the basis for creating well-appointed “Anastasia eyebrows.” Using a thin pencil, she measures a line from the beginning of my nostril opening to my brow, drawing a mark where it crosses the plane of the eyebrow. This, Sanchez says, is where the brow should naturally start. She repeats the process with slight variations, rapidly calculating where my eyebrow should arch and end.
“It’s really almost like an artistry technique,” Sanchez says. “The face is your landscape; you have to make that perfect picture.”
For Anastasia, the origins of her unique shaping method are rooted not in art, but in architecture. Born in Romania, Anastasia earned her degree in architecture at the Romania College of Architecture before deciding to change direction and pursue a cosmetology license. A short while later, Anastasia, her husband and her young daughter moved to the United States, settling in Los Angeles.
Today, Anastasia is virtually a household name. Shapings by the master run $150 and appointments are booked about six months out. Come awards season, crowds gather outside of Anastasia’s Beverly Hill’s salon on ritzy Bedford St. just to watch movie stars and their dates flow in and out of the shop.
“Anastasia is to eyebrows what Brad Pitt is to six packs. A legend.” Elle UK wrote in 2003.
When my shaping is complete I take the mirror again, ready to see the results of my transformation. But there is only me. Though my brows look lovely, neatly groomed and somewhat stylish, I am no closer to being a movie star than I was when I walked in. To my surprise I am slightly disappointed.
As I wait for my car at the Ritz’s grand front doors one of the valets calls out to me: “Did you get your eyebrows done?” he asks. “They look fabulous.”
For more information on Anastasia Soare visit www.anastasia.net.
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