Founder of Sania’s Brow Bar, NYC’s original brow bar, and celebrity brow stylist
“For me, tweezing is all about the way people look at themselves when they pick up the mirror. It’s about making people feel good.” —Sania Vucetaj
Sania Vucetaj was just 4 years old when a head-on collision with a dining table left her with a scar that split her right eyebrow in half. It wasn’t until she was married with two kids at age 21, well before brow pencils were a thing, that she discovered she could conceal the gap with an eyeliner and pair of tweezers.
The hack made her feel whole again, restoring long-lost self-esteem. Little did Sania, a stay-at-home mom at the time, know that her resourcefulness would lead her to become Manhattan’s ultimate brow expert, a brow industry pioneer whose influence is responsible for the return of the full brow.
Sania was raised in the Bronx by working class Albanian parents who believed that dreams were worth pursuing. Ever enamored by the beauty industry and captivated by fashion magazines, she quickly became known as “the brow girl” among friends and family who’d recruit her for amateur brow shaping.
The demand inspired Sania to enroll in a 10-month beauty night school, where she excitedly awaited the brow shaping curriculum. However, all she got was a measly 10-minute video on how to wax brows—something Sania didn’t believe in due to its imprecision and damage to the hair follicles.
Luckily, Sania didn’t need lessons: Embracing bold, natural brow lines was always the essence of her doctrine, and she’d already refined her signature technique to achieve the aesthetic: She uses a pencil to outline the ideal brow area, plucks with precision to create symmetry, and teaches her clients to minimize unnecessary tweezing to support the growth of naturally bold brows.
After earning her esthetician license, Sania did brows at a local salon for four months before she responded to a New York Times job listing for a brow tweezer at an upscale salon. Sania sent a professional resume complete with a zinger in the hobbies section: “I love beautifying people and always carry tweezers in my pocketbook.” When a recruiter from Bergdorf Goodman responded, Sania was too naive to be floored: Having been raised with very little, she’d never even heard of the fancy department store.
During her interview, Sania was asked to shape a Bergdorf beauty technician’s brows, and was hired on the spot. Pretty soon, editors and celebrities became regular clients. It wasn’t long before the former stay-at-home mom had become a staple in the beauty industry with a noteworthy nickname: Eyebrow Angel.
While makeup counter representatives would often hand off eyebrow pencils and gels to Sania to upsell to her clients, she couldn’t find a product that was truly satisfactory. Whether they were the wrong color, didn’t work for an array of skin tones, made of wax unfit for the unique skin beneath the brows, or caused eyebrow shedding, like brow gels, the products she tried always fell short.
Sania was at Bergdorf’s for two and a half years before she walked past a for-rent sign in a second-story storefront on 56th Street. Three months later, in 2005, she opened Sania’s Brow Bar, the very first salon of its kind to exclusively offer brow shaping via tweezer—no waxing, threading, or microblading, all of which can damage the hair follicles and prohibit natural brow regrowth. Coverage from storied editors at Vogue and Allure who’d come to personally rely on Sania’s work to shape their own faces helped put the new Sania’s Brow Bar on the map.
Despite very satisfied customers, Sania set out to develop the world’s most perfect brow pencil. It couldn’t impede on brow hair health like other products on the market, but had to fill brow gaps with staying power and natural results. It took not one, not two, but six months for her to finalize the formula, shades, and uniquely angled tip. And then came nailing the packaging: It had to look as premium as the rest of Sania’s work so that people would feel good using it.
In 2011, seeking a space that was large enough to welcome her two daughters and niece into the company, Sania found a new spot in Chelsea that fit the bill. Recruiting the next generation of brow specialists to her female-run, family-owned brow empire would no longer be a pipe dream, but part of her legacy.
In 2021, Sania, whose celebrity clients include Sarah Jessica Parker, Rihanna, Olivia Culpo, and many more, opened a second Sania’s Brow Bar location in Scarsdale, New York.
She now lives in Chelsea with her ever-supportive husband, where she continues to spread the gospel that the eyebrow industry at large now knows to be true: With the right approach, anyone can have bold, beautiful brows that they feel great about.
