Anastasia Soare, the queen of brows, wasn’t always an ambassador for perfect-looking arches.

“I was trying to fix my own eyebrows—they were pencil thin,” Anastasia told Cheddar News about her path to creating Anastasia Beverly Hills, a brand that literally created the brow category in beauty 25 years ago. Her contributions to this multi-billion category are just one of several reasons Anastasia is a finalist for Indie Brand in this year’s CEW Beauty Creators Awards.

An emigrant from Romania, Anastasia didn’t speak much English and had very little money when she arrived in the U.S., but she did have desire. While working as an aesthetician in Los Angeles, she noticed no one was paying attention to eyebrows—and how they could transform one’s face. “I told clients I could change their look by shaping their eyebrows. I became the best-kept secret in Hollywood.”

Celebrities and supermodels started lining up for Anastasia’s signature styles. Her secret, she said, was leveraging her art school training to incorporate the Golden Ratio into brow shaping (she holds the patent for the Golden Ratio Contouring Method). Demand for Anastasia’s technique skyrocketed when she was invited to shape Oprah’s brows live on TV. “That was my Oscar moment.”

Emboldened by demand, Anastasia in 2000 debuted a line of products at Nordstrom that she personally demonstrated in stores. Today her line expands beyond brows; top sellers in the Anastasia Beverly Hills portfolio include Brow Wiz, Dipbrow, Brow Gel, Brow Pen, and a bevy of palettes sold at retailers including Sephora, Ulta Beauty, and Nordstrom.

Education has been instrumental in Anastasia’s success. Nudged by her daughter Claudia, the company was early to harness the power of social media to teach the benefits of the Golden Ratio and demonstrate products. Today, the company’s handle, @anastasiabeverlyhills, claims more than 19 million followers.

Go to our Beauty News section on Friday, November 11th at 3PM EST, to find out the winners in all 33 CEW Beauty Creators categories (so you can immediately order what you’ve been missing!) And click here, now, to check out all of this year’s Product Finalists!