Mansoureh Maarifpoor has been a stalwart of Castlecrag for 25 years since opening Yours Beautifully
When Mansoureh Maarifpoor opened her beauty salon Yours Beautifully at the former Quadrangle Shopping Centre 25 years ago aged just 28, she was armed with a ‘huge determination’ to make something of her own and ‘stand on my own two feet.’
She never dreamed that 25 years on her business would not only be thriving, but even winning awards.
Last December, Mansoureh celebrated the 25-year milestone with a special evening for clients and other supporters in the community, including Willoughby MP Tim James and Mayor Tanya Taylor.
Mansoureh told those assembled that when Yours Beautifully opened in 2000, “I had a lot of debt and a heart full of passion, and love for an industry I believed in and wanted to succeed in.
“The last 25 years have come with many long hours, a lot of determination, a lot of courage when the road was unknown, and I had to travel it on my own. You put a lot of trust into us when we were new. A lot of belief in what we were doing.”
Yours Beautifully moved in 2017 from the Quadrangle when business tenants were told the centre had been sold. Knowing the salon would need to move to survive, Mansoureh acted sooner rather than later, and Yours Beautifully relocated across the other side of Edinburgh Road. Last year, the Quadrangle was demolished to make way for a mixed-use centre.
What has kept the salon going for 25 years is the ‘village community,’ Mansoureh told guests on the night of the celebration. “You have seen us through the GFC, COVID-19 and now the construction across the road. And we are still here celebrating life together.”
Mansoureh migrated to Sydney with her family from Iran when she was just 17, and after a few months the family settled in Castlecrag – where she has remained ever since. She even did Year 11 and 12 at Willoughby Girls High School, and speaks very fondly of the local community.
“I think because I’ve been here for so long there is an element of trust and there is an element of stability and consistency,” Mansoureh reflects. “We’ve constantly reinvented outselves and been quite innovative in the field. (The clients) have grown up with me and I’ve grown up with them, if that makes sense!”
During the time the salon has been operating, Mansoureh married and had two children – going back to work just one week after her first child (now 21), and three months after the second (now 17). She remembers breastfeeding in the salon and even changing her son’s nappy when she was on the phone trying to secure a deal over her first LED machine. “It’s never easy for anyone who has kids and has to work and run a business. You just do what you have to do!”
Last year, Yours Beautifully won the 2025 North Shore Local Business Award for the Beauty Services category. It was a proud moment, with Mansoureh very focused over the years on building her salon, which has now evolved into a skin clinic which offers cosmetic and dermal treatments, in addition to traditional beauty services.
What Mansoureh values highly is the personal contact and relationship with clients. “Our clients bring real stories and real life challenges so it keeps you grounded, it keeps you humble, it keeps you normal,” she reflects. “So when you think you have a problem, then people open up about their life and their presence calms you because you don’t feel alone. Hearing their (story) is a source of comfort, so there is so much more to what we do than just meets the eye.”
Mansoureh will continue ‘for a few years yet’ at the salon because the industry is ‘dynamic and innovative… so that side of it always excites me because the learning never stops.’
And for her, the ‘human element’ is very special, particularly in the ‘beautiful suburb’ of Castlecrag, which has a ‘beautiful’ client base, Mansoureh says. “I’m just lucky that I work in such a rich community of people. They have really enriched my life. I’ve been a seeker and they’ve been a teacher.”
