Unaiza Moideen is an expert at microblading.The permanent make-up technique that is similar to getting a tattoo, is administered with a blade rather than a needle, to help create the illusion of strokes of short eyebrow hairs.
After training at a Durban beauty school, Moideen opened up a skin clinic in Johannesburg in 2011.
She says her experience in microblading has been the key to the success of The Brow Bar.
“You have to be an expert when you’re permanently drawing eyebrows on to a woman’s face. There isn’t room for many mistakes.
“I get it right because I follow a system that aims to be as precise as possible. When a technician microblades they will measure, draw, template and shape the brow.
“Soon after opening the clinic I realised how few therapists worked that way. There is someone in South Africa to wax or thread your eyebrows around every corner and each of them has their own idea of what a great set of brows should look like.
“The first impression we make on others is based on how we look. A person will look at your face and see your brows before they see your eyes… especially if they’re high and low or too thin.
“When I did my research I was surprised to find that despite these facts, the more therapists that existed in an area, the more women were inclined to hop from one to the next.
“South African women have been left with a legacy of overplucked brows. It was a trend in the late ’90s and early 2000s. The look now is far more natural.
“Women with these thin brows, uncertain of what to do, continue to pluck. They feel they have no choice, largely because of the hairs’ memory from repeated overplucking and thus stubborn spots that refuse to grow back out.
“Many want to microblade when it’s just not necessary.
“Allowing the hair to grow, simply giving it time and aiding the process with conditioning serums can help. In the meantime there are expert ways with make-up to draw the brows you want in.”
She says these were the reasons that prompted her to open two brow bars in Johannesburg, one in Durban this month, as well as in Pretoria in a few weeks and Cape Town later this year.
“My staff are trained to microblade and they approach every threading session as if they were doing permanent brows. It’s a standardised idea of good brows. You can walk into our express service anywhere in the country and know irrespective of who you see they all have the same idea in mind.
“In Durban’s La Lucia Mall there are four staff and no appointments are necessary. So many women juggle roles and run hectic schedules. We don’t want them – in haste – to ruin one of their most valuable assets. We’re professional so they don’t have to be.”