About Safina a.k.a Raven Rose

This year has started strong and more recently I have qualified as a Level 5 Laser Technician which means more services can be added to my treatment list!  I am currently working on something new to add to Raven Rose, which will be revealed very soon...

After settling in to my new location in the New Year, I began taking on clients for Laser Tattoo Removal. This is when the hurdles began. The public transport strikes caused problems with clients getting to their appointments and the extended bus lanes/ gates throughout the City Centre made it difficult for clients to drive in and navigate their way around.  This  deterred clients travelling into  the City Centre for their appointments.  Which meant they wanted to find tattoo removal services more local to them that would be easier to get to.

In hopes of riding out the storm I invested in Laser Hair Removal training and also added a third Permanent Makeup Removal Service, Chemical Extraction, in order to provide more options for clients and to enhance my knowledge further.  It was around this time I made the decision to remove Permanent Makeup from my list of services as I was fast becoming established as a Permanent Makeup Removal Specialist.

In the Summer I had to make the difficult decision to relocate my business again, away from the City Centre and as an office suite became available back in the suburbs of LS8, where I began, it felt like the right decision.  This is the first time I felt like my business was home, just like it was when I was actually based at home!  My treatment room is cosy, private and reflects me and my services.  The stress to turn around the room and make it functional within a week was huge but it was worth it.  Very quickly my client base began to grow and all the difficult decisions I had to make up until that point paid off.

My passion and drive was back, I began to establish great connections with Permament Makeup Artists that reffer clients to me, my expertise began to shine and my passion for my business was reignited!

Early in the year I had to make the decision to move home.  This meant major upheaval not only in my personal life but also with my business as my business was based at home.  I found a salon close by that had a private treatment room and relocated my business there as it meant I could maintain the clientele I had built up locally.  My focus was still Permanent Makeup, removals and tailored facials.  A few months later the opportunity to guest spot at a Tattoo Studio in the City Centre presented itself so my week was split between the Salon and Tattoo Studio.

As time passed I found my interest in Permanent Makeup application diminish along with the tailored facials I was offering. The need for Permanent Makeup Removal became more apparent and I had become stagnant with my other services and felt like I had lost focus and motivation with them.  With the stress and pressure of moving home there were only so many ways my focus could be split and unfortunately my business began to suffer.  I made the decision to relocate full time to the Tattoo Studio as it was more in line with the services I wanted to offer moving forwards, shortly after relocating I trained in Laser Tattoo Removal in December 2022.

Our industry (along with many others) remained in lockdown until April.  It was in March of this year I decided to rebrand from 'Sashthetics' to 'Raven Rose'.  I wanted the rebrand to reflect my business which I class as a beauty/ tattoo hybrid business.  I leant more towards the tattoo related side as Permanent Makeup was my main service and also I felt it represented me and my style more.

When our industry opened up again it was an uphill battle as the industry had become incredibly saturated with artists that had completed online courses over lockdown as well as the huge discounts being offered in order to pull clients back.  This is when I began to carry out more removal services than ever before as I was one of few businesses in the area that offered Permanent Makeup Removal.  In the summer I left my full time job to work full time self-employed.  The saying, 'your business will remain a side hustle if you continue to treat it as a side hustle' plagued my brain so if I wanted it to be a success, I had to give it 100%.

In February of this year I trained in advanced facials and within a month of training and ordering my equipment and tools, the world went into Lockdown.  I was faced with thousands of £££'s worth of products and tools sitting dormant while we faced the uncertainty of the lockdown.  What we thought would be a few weeks turned into months.  I used this time to carry out the treatments on myself in hopes of peaking the interest of followers who might be seeking skin health related facials. Lockdown continued into August for our industry and just when we began to gain momentum, we were then informed after the New Year we would need to close again.

The business began to form in April 2019 when I trained in Microblading and came up with the business name 'SASHTHETICS' which was word play on Safina Sher Aesthetics.  I wanted a name that would stand out... in hindsight it was a terrible idea! After years of working in a soul destroying job as a Criminal Investigator / Community Project Officer within the public sector and with the constant threat of cutbacks I decided I needed to carve out my own career path.  The plan was to carry out treatments around my full time job until I was booked up enough to leave my full time emplyment.  I began creating a studio space at home, obtained my license and completed my case studies so I could qualify as a Permanent Makeup Artist.  My doors opened for the first time on June 19th, my mum's birthday.  I began to slowly but surely build interest in my services and clients started to book in.  In November I trained in Botched Ink Saline Removal as I began to see that I was turning clients away that had historic Permanent Makeup which would need to be lightenend before fresh ink was applied. I also wanted to be able to correct any mistakes I made as I was a new artist.