Some people master a craft. Do Huong did something more difficult — she took a fragmented industry operating without clear standards and gave it a compass. As Chief Judge at some of the most prestigious PMU competitions in Asia and Senior Professional Advisor to countless events, she’s spent years doing something most Grand Masters never attempt: raising the entire profession up with her. This isn’t the story of someone who climbed to the top and pulled the ladder up behind them. This is the story of someone who reached the summit and immediately started building stairs for everyone else.

In Vietnam’s permanent makeup industry, where quality can vary wildly and inexperienced artists can cause real harm, Do Huong represents something invaluable — a non-negotiable standard of excellence that protects both practitioners and clients. Her influence extends far beyond her own studio. She’s become the guardian of professional integrity in an industry that desperately needed one.

From Practitioner to Guardian of Quality

Do Huong’s path to becoming a Grand Master wasn’t unusual. Hard work, dedication, relentless practice — these are the ingredients most successful PMU artists share. What sets her apart is what she chose to do once she reached that level. Instead of focusing solely on her own studio and clientele, she turned her attention to something much larger: the health and reputation of the entire industry.

In Vietnam’s booming beauty market, permanent makeup exploded in popularity faster than professional standards could keep pace. Anyone with a weekend training certificate could call themselves a PMU artist. The results were predictable — botched eyebrows, discolored lips, scarred clients, and a growing distrust of the profession itself. She watched talented artists get lumped in with careless practitioners, and she watched clients suffer from work that should never have been performed. That’s when she made a decision that would define the rest of her career: she would become the industry’s conscience.

Standing in Judgment With Empathy and Standards

When you’re invited to judge at competitions like Festival PMU Universe Awards, Wulop, The Legend, and Global PMU, you’re not just evaluating technique. You’re setting the standard for what excellence looks like. Do Huong takes that responsibility with a seriousness that borders on sacred. She’s stood on stages across Vietnam and internationally, examining work with an eye trained by thousands of hours of practice and teaching, and she’s done something remarkable — she’s judged with both ruthless honesty and deep compassion.

The Judge Who Remembers Being Judged

What makes her effective as a judge is that she remembers exactly what it felt like to stand on the other side. She knows the nervousness, the vulnerability, the desperate hope that your work will be seen and valued. That memory informs every evaluation she makes. She doesn’t tear people down to elevate herself. She identifies weaknesses with precision, but she does it in service of helping artists improve. Her feedback doesn’t just point out flaws — it shows a path forward.

Building Systems That Raise the Baseline

Her influence extends beyond individual competitions. As Senior Professional Advisor to multiple organizations and events, she’s been quietly working to establish industry-wide standards that protect both artists and clients. She’s helped create evaluation criteria that distinguish genuine skill from superficial presentation. She’s advocated for stricter training requirements and certification processes. She’s used her platform to call out dangerous practices and celebrate excellence wherever she finds it.

This work isn’t glamorous. It involves committee meetings, policy discussions, and countless hours reviewing training curricula. But she does it because she understands something crucial — an industry is only as strong as its weakest practitioners. One poorly trained artist who harms a client damages the reputation of every PMU professional in Vietnam. By raising the baseline, she protects everyone who’s committed to doing this work with integrity.

The Review Community That Became a Movement

Her Facebook community, Review Phun Xam, now exceeds 214,000 members and represents something unprecedented in Vietnam’s beauty industry — a public space where quality is discussed openly and honestly. New practitioners share their work for feedback. Experienced artists offer guidance. Clients share their experiences, both good and bad. And through it all, she maintains a standard of discourse that’s both honest and constructive.

What makes this community powerful is that it creates accountability. When you know your work might be reviewed publicly by Do Huong or discussed by 214,000 professionals, you take your craft more seriously. The community doesn’t just share information — it creates social pressure to maintain high standards. It’s peer accountability at scale, and it’s changing how PMU is practiced across Vietnam.

Training the Next Generation With Uncompromising Standards

Her training programs at Venus Academy are legendary for being rigorous to the point of intimidating. She doesn’t offer easy certificates or weekend crash courses that send people out unprepared. Her students go through intensive, methodical training that emphasizes not just technique but understanding — why certain methods work, what can go wrong, how to recognize and correct problems before they become disasters.

In 2025 alone, she trained over 300 students in person and supported more than 4,000 online learners. But the number that matters most to her isn’t how many students enrolled. It’s how many are still practicing with integrity years later. She tracks her graduates’ careers, celebrates their successes, and steps in when they face challenges. For her, teaching isn’t a transaction where knowledge is exchanged for tuition. It’s a relationship where she remains invested in her students’ professional development long after they leave her classroom.

Nature Brows as a Teaching Tool

Her signature Nature Brows technique serves a dual purpose. Yes, it’s a method that produces exceptional results — naturally faded edges, soft texture, 98% color retention. But it’s also a teaching framework that demonstrates what’s possible when you refuse to take shortcuts. Every aspect of the technique, from ink color theory to skin structure to hand pressure, becomes a lesson in why details matter. Students don’t just learn to replicate a look. They learn to think like scientists about their craft.

Leading Through Example, Not Just Words

What makes her credible as an industry leader isn’t her title or her awards. It’s that she still practices. She still takes clients. She still spends hours perfecting techniques in her studio. She judges competitions, but she also continues to push herself to evolve her own work. That combination — maintaining excellence in practice while elevating standards for the industry — is rare. It means when she calls out poor work or sets a high bar, no one can accuse her of having lost touch with the realities of daily practice.

Her 2025 achievements tell the story of someone operating on multiple levels simultaneously. She organized the second Nature Brows Seminar, drawing 700+ experts from across Asia. She opened a new branch in Bien Hoa and renovated her Rach Gia location. She brought 5,000+ ink products and 2,000+ specialized devices to market, addressing supply chain issues that had limited quality for years. She even completed her first 21-kilometer marathon and led charity missions in Binh Phuoc and Ben Tre. Each of these activities served the same goal: strengthening the PMU ecosystem from multiple angles.

A Vision for 2026 and Beyond

As she looks ahead, her focus is shifting from personal achievement to institutional building. She wants to create sustainable pathways for newcomers to enter the profession properly trained and properly supported. She wants to establish clearer ethical guidelines that the industry can rally around. She wants to see Vietnamese PMU artists recognized internationally not just for technical skill but for professional integrity. These aren’t small goals. They require changing how an entire industry operates. But if anyone can lead that transformation, it’s someone who’s already spent years proving that high standards and commercial success aren’t mutually exclusive.

What Her Leadership Teaches Every Industry Professional

Do Huong’s approach to industry leadership offers lessons that extend far beyond permanent makeup. She demonstrates that reaching the top of your field comes with a responsibility — to protect the craft, elevate others, and ensure that the next generation inherits something better than what you found. Too many professionals treat their expertise as a scarce resource to be hoarded. She treats it as a renewable resource that grows more valuable when shared.

Her insistence on high standards hasn’t made her unpopular. It’s made her essential. Business owners want their industries to be respected. Clients want to trust the services they receive. And practitioners want clear guidance on what excellence looks like. By providing all three — raising standards, building trust, and defining excellence — she’s become the kind of leader that an entire industry can rally behind.

A Guardian Who Builds, Not Just Protects

When I think about Do Huong’s legacy, I don’t think about Nature Brows or competition wins or even Grand Master status. I think about the 214,000-member community where quality is discussed openly. I think about the hundreds of students practicing with confidence because they were trained properly. I think about the competitions where standards are enforced fairly. I think about the industry ecosystem that’s stronger because one person decided that raising everyone’s standards was more important than protecting her own market position.

She didn’t just become the best. She made being the best mean something. In an industry that could have descended into a race to the bottom — cheaper, faster, less trained — she held the line and convinced thousands to hold it with her. That’s not just mastery. That’s leadership. And it’s exactly what Vietnam’s PMU industry needed.

You can learn more about Do Huong and her work with Nature Brows and Venus Academy through her website and social media channels, where she shares professional insights, training opportunities, and her ongoing journey in the PMU industry.

---

Le Duc Anh CEO of OceanLabs – Founder of QVID