Life & Work with Kara Dobernig

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kara Dobernig.

Hi Kara, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
How far back do we want to go? I’d say my love for beauty started around age 3 when I got a Tinkerbell Makeup Set for Christmas. There is photo evidence somewhere of how ecstatic I was upon opening this most glorious of gifts.

In 4th grade, we created a book to give to our parents with our hopes, dreams, things we loved, etc.

Under the section that asked “What do you want to be when you grow up”, I wrote “A high fashion cosmetologist”. Fast forward to 33 years old, I’m going to go ahead and give myself the cosmetologist piece as I am indeed a licensed cosmetologist, but we’re still working on the “high fashion” part.

When I was 15 years old, I marched around with my mom and my “resume” to every salon in the small town where I grew up, Grand Haven, MI. I wanted to do anything they would let me – answer phones, sweep hair, and shampoo clients. As long as I got to work in a hair salon. I graduated high school early in order to begin attending cosmetology school at Douglas J Aveda Institute in Grand Rapids, MI. I knew my path was beautiful no ifs and or buts about it.

After graduating from hair school and getting my Cosmetology license I worked in various hair salons for years in a few different cities. It wasn’t until I was about 24 years old that I decided hair wasn’t going to be my long-term avenue in the beauty world. I began diving into other areas, working at a lash boutique, and a makeup boutique and eventually landing in the world of retail cosmetics with the brand Anastasia Beverly Hills.

Working at ABH is where I discovered my passion – eyebrows. For those of you who don’t know, the founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills is a woman named Anastasia Soare. She’s kind of a big deal in the world of brows as she really put brows on the map as a stand-alone service and specialty in the 90s and early 2000s.

I was extremely fortunate to learn directly from the queen of brows herself and travel around the country for many years training estheticians on how to create beautiful and balanced eyebrows at Nordstrom doors on behalf of Anastasia Beverly Hills.

After 7 incredible years with the brand, my heart was nudging me in another direction. I loved eyebrows but I was traveling 90% of the time which was taking a toll on my physical health and personal life. I said to myself one day “if I’m going to work this hard, I’m going to do it for myself” and that is the day that Supraorbital Beauty was born.

I was living in Milwaukee, WI at the time and knew the beauty scene in Milwaukee wasn’t necessarily one I wanted to be a part of. I was open to moving and definitely wanted to go somewhere with a warmer climate. Nashville had always been a part of my market for work and I had always loved traveling there for fun as well. I knew the city was growing, didn’t have a particularly saturated market for brow artists and it just so happened I had a place to land.

Bea Rose Salon in The Nations is owned by my wonderful friends Kyle Brougham and Andrew Pentecost. They are both incredible humans and talented hair/makeup artists. They had opened the salon a few years prior and I reached out to Andrew and said “how would you feel if I came and did brows in your salon?” Being the personally had been a client of mine for about 5 years… it was a no-brainer.

I was taking a huge risk leaving my stable corporate job, in the middle of a pandemic, and moving to a city where I knew hardly anyone and had no clientele to do a close contact service but I wasn’t worried. No risk no reward right?

I moved to Nashville in August of 2020, bought a home right outside of town, and opened up shop in “The Backroom” of Bea Rose Salon.

It has been an amazing journey over the past two years. I am currently fully booked with an incredible tribe of clients who have supported me more than I could have ever imagined.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The initial jump was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. I had a number in my mind that I wanted in my bank account before I quit my job at Anastasia Beverly Hills. This number was enough to cover my bills for 1 year in the event that I made no money the first year.

I was also leaving my stable job, during a pandemic, moving to a city where I didn’t know anyone, and offering a close contact service in the height of Covid-19.

I would say it took me about 8 months to start to gain some momentum. There were days I would sit at the salon all day with only one or two clients. I made sure to pound the pavement, talk to local businesses and hand out my card, chat with people who were getting their hair done at the salon, and most importantly I went in hard on social media to try and drive business.

Going from being a w-2 employee your whole life to owning a business is a huge shift. I feel like I learn something new every day in that regard.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My business card says I am the Owner of Supraorbital Beauty as well as a Master Brow Artist.

Eyebrows seem like such a silly thing to a lot of people to of made a career out of. Someone in my life once said to me, “I’ve never met anyone who loves eyebrows as much as you love eyebrows” and I do not doubt that. I really do, love eyebrows.

Eyebrows are the most impactful feature on your face. I’m sure you’ve heard all the sayings “they’re sisters, not twins” and “they’re the frame to your face” and all of this is true but more importantly… human beings perceive beauty by seeking out balance and proportion. Eyebrows can heavily dictate how balanced your entire face looks.

My specialty is looking at someone’s face, diagnosing their features, how much space exists within each zone of their face, their bone structure, and curating the perfect brow unique to them.

When you sit in my chair it isn’t just a close your eyes, rip moment. We go on a brow journey. Whether it’s taking your good brows and making them great or starting from scratch because you had tweezed all your brows away in the 90s… My goal is always to educate and empower my clients. To make them feel beautiful and in this crazy world focus on controlling the controllable like having great brows.

A pretty incredible moment for me, every time it happens is when a client cries in my chair. The feeling when a client says “wow, they’ve never looked this good” or “I’ve never been able to grow my brows back and you’ve changed my whole face” with a few tears sneaking out is pretty irreplaceable in my book.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
I think my favorite childhood memories were always based around traveling with my family.

I didn’t grow up with much money so we didn’t really get to do many things when I was a kid. One thing we always got to do was take one family trip a year with my parents, sister, grandparents, and my aunt.

My Aunt lived in Connecticut so I remember us all piling up in a car and driving, like a proper Midwest family, out east and we got to go to New York City. Family trips were always a highlight and I still love going to New York City.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.supraorbitalbeauty.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/supraoribtalbeauty
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/supraorbitalbeauty

Image Credits
Thang Dao and Bea Rose Salon