Eyebrow treatments are the speciality of Dundee businesswoman Janine Wallace, who spotted a gap in the beauty market.
This led to the creation of brow specialist Browjam and the Browjam Academy – which offers courses to perfect brow artistry skills.
The 38-year-old mother-of-three has had a varied career to date.
After school in Dundee, she studied media then enrolled on a marketing and advertising course, and later got into retail.
Then, after being in a band, she decided to focus on beauty and took private lessons as the college course was full.
An important turning point was when Janine read an article about model Katie Price receiving a brow treatment called HD Brows.
“As soon as I saw this, I was hooked,” she said.
“I grew up in the 1990s when eyebrows were overplucked, which I never did, but I did always have a passion for brows.
“I used to sit and draw them and focus on how they framed the face and the eyes.”
Janine knew she had to go on the brow course and borrowed £1,300 from her mum.
She added: “I was either the first or second person in Dundee offering this treatment.
“It started with me having people up to my house for treatments, but this ended with whole families coming up.
“It was madness and it was getting too busy for that space.”
Janine then travelled around Dundee as a mobile beauty therapist doing brows.
Opening salon ‘a turning point’
The next step was to rent space in a hairdressing salon before opening her own salon, House of Liberty, in 2013.
“The idea and concept for that was to be as far away from what was being offered at the time.
“We had hairdressers in there, we had brows, a nail bar, as well as clothes and jewellery.
“As soon as the doors opened, we were mobbed. We were so busy.”
She said the hairdressers soon decided to do their own thing, which left Janine with the entire shop.
“I decided to change the downstairs into a semi-permanent tattoo studio, as I had recently learned how to tattoo brows and do microblading.”
She said that was a “turning point” for the business. Two years into opening House of Liberty, she launched Browjam.
“Then, in 2016, we created our first Browjam beginners’ course, where people could learn all aspects of brow artistry. This kicked off the Browjam Academy.”
The academy has now trained hundreds of artists.
Janine said she enjoys the feeling of passing on her skills and experience to others.
As Browjam grew, the natural progression was to rebrand House of Liberty as Browjam Studio.
The salon currently has six employees.
And creating natural brow tattoos for clients is Janine’s speciality.
Dealing with Covid and secrets of success
Janine, who runs the business with husband Dean, said the pandemic had been both positive and negative for her.
“Covid helped me realign with my family and values, as I was definitely working far too much before.
“It also opened me up to how powerful online teaching was and has pushed me in that direction.
“It did have an affect financially, but I wasn’t going to dwell on that as I still could eat and live comfortably with my family – so many people were in worse positions.”
She put her success in business down to dedication and a bit of magic.
“It takes a lot of hard work – sacrifices are made and risks taken.
“I believe that, when you pick a career, magic happens if the compassion and care is truly there.”
Conversation