Porcelain skin, seductive eyes, a sultry mouth and gorgeous hair – surely such looks belong to a professional model, right?

Not if you happen to be gazing at one of the poster-sized photos hanging in the Beauty Worx Salon, at 7240 Frankford Ave.

You see, when owner Lois Burak notices a client – male or female – who she thinks has latent model potential, that person is treated to a complete “model makeover” to emphasize his or her natural features and give them a glamorous appearance.

The client may not be the next Elle MacPherson or Mel Gibson, but when Burak brings out that hidden beauty, he or she can sometimes come pretty close.

“It just goes to show you that you don’t have to be a model to really look like a model,” she maintained. “You can be just an average, plain Jane walking on the street.”

Once a client is given the desire “look,” with makeup, a new hairstyle – and for women, beautifully painted nails – Burak’s brother, Jeff Scott, photographs them.

“My brother takes all the photographs, and he also does hair,” Burak said. “I usually do the makeup for the girls, or one of my staff members does it.”

Scott’s 8x10 photos are often used in the salon’s stylebook, which shows clients with contemporary hairdos. Some of the pictures are blown up to 25x37 and hung in the salon, and occasionally, Burak will use a customer’s photo in one of the salon’s print advertisements.

“When we ask somebody to be a model for us, it (the makeover) is complimentary,” she explained. “Usually, they are clients of ours already. But very rarely, I will see somebody out on the street and I’ll hand them my card.”

In February, Beauty Worx relocated from Cottman Avenue to its current location. But most of the photos of made-over clients which had adorned the walls of the old salon will not be reused in the new, more upscale salon, Burak said.

“We had about fifty posters hanging in the old shop,” she noted. “But this time around, we’re not taking pictures of just anybody. They have to have more than a pretty face, they have to have a uniqueness about them – something different.”

Burak recalled how she and her brother, who is also an accomplished beautician, first began doing the model makeovers when they opened Beauty Worx.

“When we decided to open this salon,

we were looking at some of the posters that they had for sale at the beauty shows and we just didn’t like those,” she said. “They were just too posed, and they were the same posters that I saw in every salon.”

Making use of Jeff’s personal interest in photography, the siblings soon began creating their own posters by using non-professional “models” in more natural poses.

Of course, some of the clients chosen for makeovers by the salon owners actually have aspirations to be models, and a few even have some modeling experience, Burak noted.

“We have done a couple of local models in the past,” Burak said. “I said to one girl, ‘Would you be interested in modeling?’ and she brought me back a whole portfolio. Here, she already was a model.”

However, clients who hope to achieve their full beauty potential but don’t receive a makeover model request need not worry. For $30, Beauty Worx offers “The Works” – makeup, hairstyle and manicure, and if a client wants a photo taken, Scott’s services are also available.

“Occasionally, we’ll get a request from a client to do it as a present for their husband,” Burak noted. “We make them look so different, they just love it.”