Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Allen.
Sarah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Beauty has been part of who I am for as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I loved everything feminine—hair, nails, makeup and fashion. My mother had a subscription to Allure, and I would lie on the floor and read every issue from cover to cover. I wasn’t necessarily wearing or buying the designers I was reading about, but I studied them. I could recognize an Oscar de la Renta design just from looking at it. I was fascinated by beauty, presentation and the details that made something feel special.
Before entering the beauty industry, I worked as an analyst for General Motors. It was probably the most money I had made professionally at that point, but I knew I wasn’t fulfilled. I was working among engineers, mathematicians, statisticians and scientists, doing work that felt very different from who I was creatively. I remember coming to work with faux locs with pink woven through the back, my nails done, completely myself—and knowing I didn’t quite fit the mold.
While I was still working there, I invested $500 in a weekend lash course. Before I even took the class, I had created the Instagram page, researched how to structure the business and started thinking about marketing. I had previously owned an event-planning company, so entrepreneurship wasn’t completely foreign to me, but the beauty industry was.
Shortly afterward, I left GM after accepting another position, and that offer was unexpectedly rescinded. Suddenly, I didn’t have the security of either job. I remember telling my father what had happened, and his response was simple: “Well, you already have a job. No need to look for another one. Make it work, baby.”
So I did.
I officially started Doll Eyes Lash & Skin Studio in May 2016 from my home studio. And “making it work” was not glamorous. I went nearly six months without receiving a single call. I walked through neighborhoods near my home in the summer heat passing out flyers. I attended entrepreneurship events in Detroit while calculating whether I had enough gas to last the rest of the week. Sometimes I couldn’t afford event parking, so I parked farther away, put on my custom Doll Eyes jacket, walked over with my business cards and introduced myself to anyone who would listen. I tried pop-up shops that barely made enough money to cover what I brought with me. I didn’t always know what would work—I just knew I wasn’t going to stop trying.
Eventually, I realized that if I wanted Doll Eyes to grow, I wanted to expand beyond lashes. In 2018, I enrolled at Michigan College of Beauty to become a licensed esthetician and add skincare and waxing to my services. I almost talked myself out of enrolling before I ever started. Every financial or logistical reason I gave myself for why I couldn’t do it somehow met a solution during my admissions appointment. I walked into the school that day expecting to take a tour and walked out enrolled, with uniforms, and instructions to report that Monday.
Then life changed again. Shortly after beginning school, I became pregnant with my daughter Eden. It became an extremely complicated pregnancy, and Eden was ultimately born at just 24 weeks, weighing 1 pound, 4 ounces. She spent four months in the hospital. What was supposed to be a straightforward path toward graduation became something completely different, but I returned and finished. I even worked in the school’s admissions office afterward to satisfy the remaining portion of my tuition.
There have been many chapters between that beginning and where I am now—personal setbacks, motherhood, rebuilding, difficult seasons in business and, most recently, another extraordinary journey into motherhood with my youngest daughter, Sage. Through every version of my life, Doll Eyes has remained.
This May marked 10 years in business, and I think the thing I’m proudest of is that I never quit. Doll Eyes grew from a $500 lash class and a home studio into a business that has supported me, allowed me to build long-term relationships with incredible clients and taught me how to trust my instincts as an entrepreneur.
Today, I’m also taking everything those ten years taught me and applying it to the next chapter: developing Eden & Sage™, a luxury sleep and beauty brand inspired by my daughters. I’m thinking much more intentionally now about legacy—creating something that isn’t solely dependent on my hands performing a service, but something that can grow beyond me and ultimately belong to my children.
Looking back, my path makes much more sense than it did while I was living it. There were so many moments when I didn’t know exactly how I was going to make something work. I just kept finding the next step. That’s really the story of Doll Eyes—and probably the story of me as an entrepreneur.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not at all. My journey has probably been the opposite of a smooth road, but I think that’s also where much of my resilience as an entrepreneur was developed.
In the beginning, one of my biggest struggles was simply getting people through the door. There were months when the phone didn’t ring. I was building a business without a large budget, a roadmap or a team behind me. I was learning marketing, branding, client retention and business operations while simultaneously trying to become better at my craft. There were times when I attended entrepreneurship events while calculating how much gas I had left for the week. I tried things that didn’t work. I spent money I probably couldn’t afford to spend. I made mistakes. And I kept going.
There was also a very personal turning point in 2017 when I experienced incarceration. It was a difficult and humbling chapter of my life, but it also forced me to become incredibly still and honest with myself about the life I wanted to create. On my first night there, I wrote a letter to myself outlining things I wanted for my future. I wrote about cosmetology school, developing a skincare line, building brands and securing trademarks—some of which I didn’t completely understand how I would accomplish at the time. I still have that letter.
When I returned home in February 2018, I approached my life and my business differently. I enrolled in esthetics school later that year, and Doll Eyes began growing in a way it hadn’t before. Today, I own multiple trademarks, I’ve been in business for ten years, and I’m developing another brand. It’s powerful for me to look back and realize that some of the things I wrote down during one of the lowest periods of my life eventually became part of my reality.
Motherhood has also shaped my entrepreneurial journey tremendously. I became pregnant with my daughter Eden while attending esthetics school. She was born at only 24 weeks, weighing 1 pound, 4 ounces, and spent four months in the hospital. Years later, I experienced extreme prematurity again with my youngest daughter, Sage, who was born at 22 weeks. Those experiences changed me personally, but they also changed the way I think about entrepreneurship, time and what I’m ultimately building.
Being self-employed while raising children—particularly through complicated pregnancies, long hospital stays and the demands of motherhood—has required constant adaptation. In a service-based business, if I’m not physically working, revenue can stop. There is no guaranteed paycheck. Clients reschedule, life happens, and yet the expenses of running a business and raising a family continue. I’ve had to learn how to rebuild momentum more than once.
I’ve also had to grow beyond some of my own habits as an entrepreneur. Creativity and vision have always come naturally to me; structure hasn’t always come as easily. I’ve had to become more intentional about finances, systems, consistency and separating the excitement of an idea from the discipline required to sustain it. Ten years in, I’m still learning.
But I don’t look at the difficult parts of my story as evidence that I was on the wrong path. If anything, they’ve taught me that resilience isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s simply deciding, over and over again, that you’re going to keep building.
My father told me when I first found myself without a traditional job, “Make it work, baby.” At the time, he was talking about my new business. Ten years later, I realize that phrase became a philosophy for my life.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Doll Eyes Lash & Skin Studio?
Doll Eyes Lash & Skin Studio is a beauty and aesthetics studio I founded in 2016, specializing in customized eyelash extensions, waxing, skincare, and beauty services. From the beginning, I wanted Doll Eyes to feel different. I never wanted to simply provide a service and send someone out the door. I wanted women to have a place where they could come, exhale, be cared for, and leave feeling beautiful and confident.
I think one of the things that sets Doll Eyes apart is how personal the experience is. I have clients who have been with me for years, and over time you become part of one another’s lives. I know their families, their careers, their celebrations and sometimes their hardest seasons. They have watched me build a business, become a mother again, navigate life, and continue evolving, and they have trusted me with themselves throughout all of it. I don’t take that kind of loyalty lightly.
I’m also very particular about my work. I specialize in creating beauty that complements the individual rather than giving every client the exact same look. Whether I’m designing a lash set, shaping brows, performing a wax or providing skincare, I want the result to make sense for the woman sitting in front of me. My approach has always been that luxury is not just about how something looks — it is about how someone feels while receiving it.
Brand-wise, I am most proud that Doll Eyes has lasted and evolved. I started this business with very little besides a lash certification, an idea, Google, instinct and an absolute refusal to quit. Ten years later, it is still here. I have built a loyal clientele, expanded my education and services, obtained trademarks for my brand, and created something that has supported me and my family through several different seasons of my life.
I’m especially proud that Doll Eyes has also become the foundation for how I think about entrepreneurship now. I no longer see myself as simply someone who performs beauty services. I see myself as a founder, creator and brand builder. Doll Eyes taught me how to take an idea that existed only in my head and turn it into something real — and that experience has shaped the way I approach everything I’m building next.
What I want readers to know most is that Doll Eyes was not built overnight, and it was not built because everything went according to plan. It was built through consistency, relationships, creativity, reinvention and a lot of faith in myself when there wasn’t necessarily evidence yet that things were going to work. I’m incredibly proud of the services I provide, but I’m even more proud of the community and trust I’ve built around the Doll Eyes name.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was curious, creative, observant and very independent. I was always interested in beautiful things — beauty, fashion, makeup, hair, design — and I paid attention to details. My mom used to get Allure magazine subscriptions, and I would literally lie on the floor and read those magazines from cover to cover. I became fascinated with designers and fashion houses. I could recognize an Oscar de la Renta design or identify a designer’s aesthetic just from looking at it, even though those certainly weren’t the things I was wearing or buying as a kid. I just loved learning about that world.
I was also very girly. I loved makeup, hair and nails, and at different points I imagined myself doing all of those things professionally. Looking back, the common thread was that I loved transformation and presentation. I loved seeing how small details could completely change the way something looked or felt.
Personality-wise, I’ve always had a mind of my own. I’m a thinker, but I’m also a dreamer. When something interests me, I can go very deep into it. I want to know everything — how it works, who made it, why they made it that way and how I could make it my own. I don’t think I understood when I was younger that those were entrepreneurial or creative instincts. I was just being myself.
I also grew up in a family where education and achievement mattered. My parents met at Tennessee State University, and I grew up understanding that you were supposed to make something of yourself. My own path just ended up looking a little different than the traditional version I initially imagined.
What’s funny is that so much of who I am professionally now was already there. The girl studying magazines, noticing branding and presentation, loving beauty and imagining possibilities eventually became the woman building brands of her own. I just didn’t have the language for it yet.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dolleyes313
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1LTtZ5j9Bh/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@dolleyeslashskinstudio9268
- Yelp: https://yelp.to/ef05VXhcFR
