Wearing her trademark black dress, hat and sunglasses – she has multiples of each – Diva (she does have another name but, these days is mostly known as Diva Brow) settles down to chat in the café at Hospitalia by Yara. It’s here that she has her headquarters offering both training and her highly exclusive new-generation permanent make-up micropigmentation technique to restructure eyebrows.
With 75,000-plus Instagram followers and a client list that includes royals, VIPs and celebrities, some who fly her around the world for treatments, it’s hard to believe she only started out in the business three and a half years ago. But this is indeed the case.
She explains: “I was in Asia on vacation when I saw a shop showing this sort of service and I was interested. That’s how I got into this field. I decided to take a five-day course and I liked it but I was not OK with the way it was being done and decided to research other methods.”
A two-week holiday turned into a three-month stay as she travelled across Asia seeing how other eyebrow artists were working. “I discovered different ways of working and different methods that inspired me,” she says.
She went home to Paris and set up her treatment business but continued travelling; the US, Russia, Spain, even Kazakhstan, she searched for improvements and new techniques wherever she went. “After looking at many, many ways to work, I created my own concept and now, in the last three years, I have done more than 1,200 treatments,” she says.
So, what brought her to the Gulf? “One day I received a VIP lady, a shaikha, in Paris. She was from Qatar and when people saw her eyebrows, they liked my work. She said I should come to The Gulf, and I did. I went to Dubai and then all over.
“I preferred Bahrain because in Bahrain I found a second family. My sponsor is Yara’s father, Jameel Ali Salman. He was very interested in my business and said he would support me. I’m treated like his fifth child!”
Diva says what sets her apart is that she has painting and artistic skills and looks at the face almost as a canvas. “I respect the features of the face,” she explains. “The eyebrows should enhance the face, not take over. May technique is very precise. I have strong skills and it takes consideration.
“A lot of people do this [eyebrow tattooing] because they want money. They take a three-day course and become a tattoo artist, but they have no skills.”
Working on all skin types and colours, Diva mixes each pigmentation individually and is currently working on creating her own pigment brand. It’s this kind of customisation that brings clients, and trainees for the small exclusive classes she runs in Bahrain, from all over the world.
But, having money is not enough to get Diva Brows – she does not work with every would-be customer. She explains: “People come for my vision; I choose the best technique for them.” What if someone wants something she is not happy with? “I’m expensive, I’m selective and I’m exclusive. I decide who I will take on as a client, even if they have money!” And, therein lies another secret to her success.
