Article and photos by Yulia Rock
Cleopatra, Maria Antoinette, Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Twiggy, Madonna, Brooke Shields, Cara Delevingne–these are just some of the women famous not only for their talents but for their eyebrows.
Beauty trends need not only iconic women but also the artists who create them. One such artist is Sebastian Latiolais, a makeup artist for 20 years who began exploring eyebrow artistry 18 years ago.
Latiolais, 40, was born in Louisiana in the heart of Cajun Country’s bilingual, French and English, community. “Right in the swamps,” Latiolais said, recalling the humid climate and giant mosquitos. “My mother was only 15 when she married my father,” and 17 when she gave birth to her second child, Sebastian, he said. When his father was 19, he broke his back and had to stay largely in bed for years. So his mother had to financially support the entire family while cooking, cleaning and raising six children. His parents are still together.
Finding family life difficult and at times abusive, Latiolais found a refuge at the nearby Catholic Church and went there seven days a week. “It was my sanctuary,” he said. In 6th grade, he began organizing a youth group—he called it retreat team—and by 7th grade over 60 junior high and high school students had joined.
Still, Latiolais could not wait to leave his town and family. As soon as he finished high school, Latiolais joined a team of evangelists. “Out of 2,500 applicants from Louisiana, I was the only one who made it onto the team,” Latiolais said with a hint of pride. With the team, he traveled from city to city in the U.S. and Canada for a year. This experience inspired him to study adolescent therapy and marriage consulting at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.
After graduating, he worked as a flight attendant at Northwest Airlines, based in Detroit; met the man he would marry, and discovered a passion for the beauty industry.
One off day Latiolais was on a photo set with his intended, Jeff, a fashion stylist. “I was blown away by a makeup artist who completely transformed the models,” Latiolais said, and he decided to do makeup on the side. To learn the basics, he hired a makeup artist to train him, studied at the Michigan College of Beauty, then began working at a brow and makeup studio in Birmingham, Mich.
There, he saw the power of eyebrows. “I would have clients with such bad eyebrows,” he said. “And to just balance out their faces, I started fixing eyebrows as my first step to makeup. Before I knew it, I had clients coming back every month for their eyebrows.”
He also did makeup for photo shoots and worked with celebrities including LeAnn Rimes and Reese Witherspoon. But, when he was 33, a car accident put him in a wheelchair, “I lost all my feelings from my waist down,” Latiolais said. Doctors said he had 50/50 chance to walk again.
“So I was shipped back to Louisiana,” he said, reunited with his family and, after long therapy he learned how to walk again and moved to New York City to start a new chapter of his life.
He has been living in New York for eight years, mostly in Harlem. At first, he worked in restaurants and did makeup for photo shoots on the side. Soon, the Gotham Beauty Lounge at Bryant Park hired him to do makeup and eyebrows.
“I just started giving away free eyebrows at Bryant Park to build my clientele,” Latiolais said, while tweezing a client’s brows at his new salon on 45th Street. “I built a strong enough clientele to support me and my business, and three years ago, I opened my first Brows by Sebastian studio.” Latiolais stands 6’2″, has broad shoulders and genuine smile, and his five-star reviews on Yelp emphasize his vibrant personality.
He shares his studio with a hair salon; he has no investors, and is a self-funded sole proprietor. “I’m trying to see if I can pull it off myself,” he said.
His studio, unlike the previous one on the ground floor, is on the seventhth floor. “At first I was worried about it,” but then he noticed that clients felt exclusive, because “it’s hidden and private, you gotta really know us before you are coming.” His clientele is 40 percent male.
His junior artists’ rates begin at $35 for a 30-minute session; Latiolais charges $75 for 15 minutes. “We don’t do advertising, just word of mouth and referrals. Sixty percent of clients come from Yelp reviews,” Latiolais said. “From Instagram, we get two to three clients a week on average.”
For the past few years, beauty editors at Vogue, Allure, Galore and HuffPost have asked him to provide tips and tricks for the beauty articles.
Latiolais plans to open a studio in Beverly Hills. Then one in Miami. “My favorite part of my job is that over time I really became family with my clients,” Latiolais said.