Talking to… SOPHIA AZIZA

The celebrity brow artist and PB London 2024 speaker tells Lollie Hancock how she built up her A-list client base and the skills it takes to go it alone as a brow tech

When it comes to brows, there’s only one person A-listers are turning to: Sophia Aziza, or as she’s known to her following of over 40,000 on Instagram, Sophia Brows. The brow artist, who now operates on an invitation-only basis, has been in the brow game a relatively short time, starting her career in her father’s back garden in Algeria, following time in spas as a Level 4 therapist. “I’ve always been a bit of an artist, if I can call myself that, and the brow journey began in 2017,” she explains. “I’d moved back to Algeria where my dad’s side is from, and the nanny there said she liked my eyebrows… we snuck out because we didn’t want my dad to see me doing her brows.

“I saw the transformation and how happy she was, and knew that when I came back to London it was something I wanted to pursue.”

In the beginning

On her return to the UK, Aziza was keen to begin training to start her brow career, with HD Brows as her initial training of choice, before taking the leap to rent a room. “I was in a big hair salon in Fitzrovia – it’s actually down the road from where I’m based now – and once I’d acquired a skill with the threads, I went on to work for a brow artist in London.

Aziza’s old studio flat in West Kensington where she treated clients in 2021

“I started becoming in demand while I was there and went to work in Knightsbridge for a Russian salon as brow lamination was just getting started in the UK.”

Aziza’s decision to move to a Russian salon meant she was learning the latest brow treatment innovation from those who knew it best, with brow lamination becoming a skill she built so quickly that she soon struggled to keep up with demand from clients.

As a result, Aziza made the decision to fly solo. She reflects, “The demand just got so overwhelming, I ended up quitting on a lunch break. I did phone to apologise later! I was late into work one day and had five people sat waiting for me. I thought ‘I’m only 20 minutes late!’. One of my colleagues said they were all here because they’d seen my work on Instagram. I was already overwhelmed and fully booked, and I called a friend on my lunch break crying. She said, ‘you’ve got to leave.’”

Solo mission

For Aziza, working for herself gave the flexibility to take a brow treatment and turn it into a more luxury experience. “I really put so much into treatments. I don’t like the headache of only being given a certain amount of time,” she says. “I think it’s good to work for yourself if you want more client trust because you build that client base – it’s a lot more difficult to do that in a salon.”

Aziza transforming the family nanny’s brows with tweezers back in 2017

When it comes to taking the risk and investing in your own business, Aziza recommends you prepare financially before taking the plunge. “Have three to six months as a rainy day fund, and, if you’ve got that, leave. Oh, and make sure we’re not going into a lockdown – if I’d know that that was coming, I wouldn’t have done it!”

Initially setting up her flat as a brow studio, Aziza brought clients into her home for treatments as lockdown restrictions began to lift. “I was living in a studio flat at the time, which was literally just a living room with a little door to the kitchen and a bathroom. So, my plan was to work from there and disguise it as a brow studio.

“To my clients, it looked like I was renting it for a brow studio because I didn’t have a TV, just an L-shaped sofa that pulled out into bed, and then a treatment bed and a plant. I started seeing clients and kept browsing for my next place, which is where I am now in Holland Park.”

The aftermath of Covid was far from an easy period for Aziza, and both living and working in what was essentially a single room as lockdown restrictions lifted took its toll. She shares, “I know it sounds cliché but until you’re in a good place, you don’t realise you were in a bad place mentally. It’s crazy because I don’t think about it a lot, but I said to Jasmin (her assistant), you’ve got to be able to look back without crying, because you’re in survival mode.”

Aziza celebrating the end of her residency at The Londoner

VIB: very important brows

The risk paid off and Aziza began to fly in her career, with both her regular and VIP client list filling up quickly. The person who kickstarted it all? TV presenter Maya Jama.

Similarly to Jama’s make-up artist, Letitia Sophia, who we spoke to on The Pro Beauty Pod in 2023, Aziza’s relationship with the presenter began with a bit of courage and a DM to the star’s social media account.

“I was hungover in my PJs and DM’d her thinking she’d never reply. She replied that day, and my mum drove me to her flat in Fulham,” says Aziza. “No one had ever touched her brows before. I was shaking because I was so nervous. My success has definitely come off the back of the support from Maya – and the bloggers whose brows I was doing at that time.”

With other celeb clients including S’Able Labs co-founder Sabrina Elba, who launched the line alongside her husband, actor Idris Elba, being able to build a trusting relationship has been the key to Aziza’s success. “I’ve never signed an NDA. I was trusted with addresses so early on. I think just having that trust is so important,” she says. “It’s difficult to say where the success came from because you’re talking about people skills… but I just love people. People like Maya… having an insight into her and realising this woman got success through hard graft and joking around, it definitely inspires me.”

Aziza advises others looking to build a celebrity client base not to be afraid to be selfish when it comes to client relationships. “I’d be going to their houses late at night after I finished work in the salon but I knew if I’d invited them in, the salon would take them as their clients,” she says.

Aziza’s waiting room at Pulse Laser in Fitzrovia

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Balancing act 

It’s clear that she’s a busy woman, and Aziza aims to provide an elevated brow experience for all her clients, VIP or not, meaning her treatments take time and dedication – a trait she attributes to her days working in spas. “I think it comes from having a spa background because it’s about giving a bit more time to treatments. An initial consultation takes 45 minutes,” she says.

In fact, the brow artist is so dedicated to client experience that she’s developed her own threading technique, allowing her to remove single hairs with minimal pain. As a result of her priorities, she brought on her long-standing client Jasmin Carroll in an assistant role to help manage her administration and social media.

“She was a client for three years. She was already PA-ing for someone else and could see that I wasn’t managing – I’ve never had PR or an assistant and have always just done it totally alone.

“I don’t plan my socials, but this year I’m planning to be on social media a lot more. I’ve been a bit camera shy in the past, which hasn’t helped, and if there were any extra hours I could get in the treatment room, it always went on the clients.”

For those considering bringing on an assistant, Aziza advises, “It’s an investment. You can’t look at it as money lost because all that time is gained. I’d literally finish in the treatment room at 8pm and be on my phone getting back to clients until midnight then just falling asleep. It’s nice to have some distance mentally now; you really need that separation.”