From the founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills - an immigrant who built a global cosmetics brand from nothing - an inspiring memoir about believing in yourself and chasing what brings you joy

An esthetician and single mother with no connections, Anastasia Soare risked her life escaping communist Romania to come to America. Raising Brows tells the remarkable story of how she built a billion-dollar beauty brand and went from watching Oprah’s TV show to learn English, to shaping Oprah’s eyebrows on the very same show years later.

Anastasia disrupted the beauty industry by applying her art school training on the "golden ratio" of beauty to eyebrows. Helping women find harmony with their face, Anastasia put eyebrows on the map. She pioneered new makeup products and built a glittering roster of clients like Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and Hailey Bieber. But beneath the glossy exterior, Anastasia’s path wasn’t easy.

In this powerful memoir, she shares her extraordinary journey, putting her Romanian values of hard work, persistence, and optimism to the test in Los Angeles, ignoring the landlords and bank managers who laughed when she tried to open a salon focusing on brows. Anastasia’s story serves as a powerful reminder that you can do anything you put your mind to so long as you are passionate and determined. As she says, "It''s the love and effort we put into our pursuits and relationships that truly define our success."

Autorentext

Anastasia Soare

Leseprobe
Chapter One

Beginnings

To see far is one thing, going there is another.
-Constantin Brâncuși, Romanian artist

My drive to succeed was forged by my family and by growing up in Romania. I am told that both trauma and positivity can be passed down generationally. I believe that my optimism and my grit are in my DNA. Many people today are unable to trace their family history back more than a generation. If you can't, that's OK, you can build your own narrative. If you do know your family history, there is something to learn about yourself from the stories of your past. I learned that I came from a long line of survivors.

My family story begins with my grandfather Andrei Mangri. What happened to him is the foundation of everything my family is and everything I became. It is an immigrant story. I lived it myself when I picked up and started over in another country.

My grandfather was a Macedonian who grew up in Albania. He immigrated to Romania at the turn of the last century, as it was the land of opportunity for Eastern Europe. Bucharest, the capital, was even considered the "Paris of the East." My grandfather was a boy during World War I and lost everything, including his parents. As a young man, he went to Romania in search of a better life for his family. He brought with him his wife, children, and entire extended family, including his sister, cousins, and a beloved aunt who had supported him and who he would support for the rest of her life. They settled in the countryside near Constanța, a port city on the Black Sea. There he built a large house surrounded by many acres of farmland, raising animals and crops. He began to prosper.

When he served in World War II, my grandmother ran the farm. She managed it on her own, raising my mother and her siblings with the scrappy philosophy: Work hard, don't complain, figure it out. Today we might call this tough love. My mother passed these traits on to me, and in turn, I passed them to my daughter.

By the time I was born, my parents had their own home with a busy tailor business in the front rooms, just down the street from the rest of the family. The Macedonian community was very tight-knit, as immigrant communities often are. We dressed slightly different from the native Romanians and ate foods made with different recipes. There were always loud family gatherings: dinners, weddings, and celebrations with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. If you can visualize My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it was very much like that.

When the Communist Party gained control of the country in 1947, everything changed. It was as if the sun slowly dimmed across Romania: The light seemed to shift from gold to gray. The government seized private property from landowners. The land, the animals, the big family house my grandfather had built from the ashes of his own impoverished background were all confiscated.

He moved into the city of Constanța. There, on a smaller property, he built three houses for his extended family. These were soon confiscated too, the houses torn down and replaced by a row of concrete utilitarian government apartments. He and his family were assigned small apartments in a building nearby. His apartment was on the fourth floor, with no elevator. He was eighty-six at the time.

He lived until he was ninety-two. Working on a farm had made him physically robust. Walking up and down the stairs kept him agile late in life. But his mental discipline was his enduring legacy to us. My grandfather believed that you could control your own thoughts. Much before it was popularized, he meditated every day. He was meticulous about his clothes, his food, and his mindset.

By 1975, ten years after Nicolae Ceaușescu had come to power, the Paris of the East was gone. In its place were shortages of food, heat, and individual freedom. Winters were cold; we were told to wear our clothes to bed. There were harsh penalties for those who tried to protest or fight. People just tried to survive. Through this, my grandfather's ever-present komboloi (prayer beads) kept him steady. He would endure no matter what was thrown at him, even though the loss all around was palpable. He was like one of the mighty granite rocks that jutted out from the coast onto the Black Sea. He stood strong and immovable even when battered by a turbulent tide.

My grandfather and I had a special bond, two rebels at heart. He had a small old radio that he kept in a tiny in corner of his room. We used to close the drapes, lock the door, and listen to the Voice of America broadcast together. We were so isolated in Romania that this was the only way we could hear what was happening in the outside world; everything on our TV and radio stations was Communist propaganda. My grandfather and I used to huddle in that corner, listen to the broadcast, and talk. He would say, "Sia, I made a big mistake. I should have immigrated to America instead of Romania. You should go to America." I think he put that seed in my head, because from a very early age I knew I wanted to go to America. Later, when my husband said it would be difficult to be an immigrant, I didn't listen. My grandfather's words always stayed with me.

I am not sure exactly when it bubbled into my conscious thought, but through my grandfather's example, I began to understand that your mind, your heart, and your spirit are your fortress. No one else has access. You have control over what you think and how you react to challenges. I would need this mindset to sustain me as I made my way out of Romania. After my husband sought political asylum in America, it held me together when I was interrogated for hours by the secret police alone in a sterile room. Or when our home was regularly raided and ransacked by police, looking for anything they considered contraband-money, jewelry, silver, dollars, extra food. And when I waited three long and difficult years for a passport before I could embark on a plane to freedom.

My grandfather's ability to keep going taught me that no matter what is happening around you, only you have power over your mindset. Only you can decide what will give you meaning. And once you make that decision, every action you take, whether personally or in business, needs to move you toward making that life happen.

Believe in the Possible, E…