, includes “an overly tan skin tone, a South Asian influence with the brows and eye shape, an African-American influence with the lips, a Caucasian influence with the nose, a cheek structure that is predominantly Native American and Middle Eastern”.
Smith has olive skin and naturally thick dark brows, eyelashes and hair. Nonetheless, she has eyelash extensions , which cost $180, and $80 a fortnight to maintain. She has almost all her body hair – full legs, Brazilian, arms, armpits, chin, upper lip and cheeks – removed via monthly waxing and laser, which costs at least $100 a session for waxing and about double that for laser.
But brow tattooing comes in all shapes and sizes, and Westley has some reservations about the current fashion for a “very sculptured, defined, dark brow – the Kim Kardashian brow” . “I actually disagree with it,” she says. “It means you need a lot of other treatments to balance things out in your face. You need the lips, the lashes, the whole thing.” Added to which, if a Kim Kardashian brow goes wrong, it goes really wrong.
These days, she treats three generations of the same families at her 14-room salon, with up to 3000 clients a week in the Christmas rush period. “I still have 70-year-old women having bikini waxes,” she laughs. “Don’t ask me why! But it’s great!”