The beauty industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it takes three key traits to become a success story in this competitive field. Juliet Falchi, the director of global product innovation for MAC Cosmetics, shares a few tips with readers on how to make your mark.

Whether you’re focusing on the beauty business side, makeup artistry, beauty education, online beauty education, or cosmetics research and development, this growing industry requires hard work and dedication.

“There’s a rhyme, a reason, and a science to why we do everything that we do,” said Falchi. “There’s a lot of work, thought, and testing involved.”

Falchi believes there are three traits an aspiring beauty professional should possess in order to be successful: the first is to be flexible, adaptive, and willing to learn. The beauty industry is an extremely fast-paced environment where things are constantly changing.

“You have to know you may be working on a project for months about matte lips,” said Falchi. “Someone may come to you and say, stop what you’re doing. You need to focus on metallics. This is the new trend.”

A successful beauty professional must be able to adapt and go with the flow. There is no syllabus when it comes to working in the beauty industry as new research and trends emerge. Flexibility is key.

Number two: being collaborative is super important. You can’t work in a silo. The beauty industry means working with other people who have different opinions, backgrounds, and interests than you. When you all come together to share ideas and concepts, you can create something incredible. You may have one piece of the puzzle, but you need all these diverse people to create the rest.

Lastly, Falchi says the third trait you need is to be passionate about beauty and truly love what you’re doing. That passion will shine through you and everything you do.

Jeanne Grey, founder of GreyLayers says that cosmetics and beauty as a whole can change one’s personality. “When I was little, I used to observe my mom and how she got ready in the morning and completely transform from a completely simple person into somebody different. I saw how her personality changed along with that and I thought that was amazing. I wanted to grow up and see how I can do that for other people as well,” explains Grey.

Grey says about beginning her career as a social media beauty expert, “My advice to the younger me would be to just be you and just let things flow. And eventually, with experience, all the trial and errors counted in too, everything will just work out.”

The most common mistake that Grey has seen in the beauty industry is people not being prepared prior to getting into the career. She says, “You have to treat this career as you would any other career, being a lawyer, a doctor, any important one.” She also emphasizes being business savvy and professional. “This industry, especially because it is an easy play, you know playing with cosmetics, products and different kinds of experiences, you easily forget to be professional.”

One of the ways Grey has found success in her career is by putting together case studies. These case studies are reports of a certain niche project that she’s done in the past. “For instance, as an influencer, I have done projects for a lot of hospitality brands,” says Grey. In order to land a gig with a beauty brand, Grey creates a slideshow that ties in her hospitality background of traveling and creating content. She then combines beauty into that by showing them that she was able to use beauty products throughout her trip. “I highlight how I was able to create that and capture my audience at the same time.”

Hannah Bronfman, founder of HBFIT sits down with us and provides advice on how to get a career in the beauty industry and push yourself out of your comfort zone

“I think the advice that I would give to my younger self would be don’t feel awkward about cold calling and reaching out blind,” says Hannah Bronfman, founder of HBFIT. “I think there’s something to be said about a go-getter and someone who knows what they want and how to get it, or at least how they think they know how to get it.”

When you cold call someone and you have a heart and soul behind what you’re trying to achieve, that comes through. Maybe the first time, the person doesn’t answer the email but emails them again. Persistence is key.

A specific area of the beauty industry that’s changed via technology is the booking platforms. Hannah says a lot of these companies have created their own SaaS products, which is a statistical analytics system that is like the brain of a lot of these apps. Whether it’s Glam Squad, the Glamm app, Style Seat, all of these programs and technologies have created a new way that people interact with beauty and the way that beauty is booked for the professional and the consumer.

It’s brought the beauty world to a full on-demand system just like everything else that we see. So I think technology has an impact on the product and the way it’s designed.

Every single brand is trying to recreate the lipstick or foundation, lotions, gels that finish matte or true match a color, or lipstick that looks blue, but it’s going to turn bright pink. I think everyone’s trying to do this kind of surprise and delight using technology to help create a different product that hasn’t been to the market yet, says Hannah.

To prepare for an interview, you can do a few things differently. One, do your research, know who you’re being interviewed by, and know the trajectory of their career.

For the company that you’re interviewing for, know their past big product launches and what has gone on in the news.

Consider: Have they raised money? Have they been acquired? Did they go through a recall?

“Those are things that you want to know before an interview. And I think some other things that you can do is, always, if you’re going into a beauty meeting, wear lipstick, wear eye shadow, nothing that’s flashy, but something that says you’re an enthusiast,” Hanna explains. “And always be polite, take your time when you’re speaking. It comes off a lot better when you don’t say the word like or um.”

We’re in for a really big change. Things are changing before our eyes now; the retail experience is totally different from what it used to be. We’re also going to see a lot of movement.

The people that are going to be successful are the ones that are aware of how people are shopping. Hopefully, people will go back into the store, but a lot is happening online. But how do you sell makeup online? You’ve got to be creative.

One piece of advice to anyone that wants to be an entrepreneur — because who doesn’t want to work for themselves — is to make sure you have something or an idea that is better than anything out there. Bobbi Brown, a makeup artist/author/entrepreneur says “It’s got to be new. It’s got to be better. Make sure you know you’re going to be working 24 hours a day. You never stop thinking about it.”

I also recommend working for a company. Go work for a big company, because then you’ll know what you don’t want to do. You’ll learn how to act, how to arrive on time, and how to write spreadsheets. The more you know, the better you do. There’s no rush.

Brown says there are three traits he loves to see when people want to get into the beauty industry. Number one: energy. You need to have good and positive energy.

You also need to be really curious. I don’t care what you know. I care what you want to know.

The third thing, which everyone says, is passion. You have to love what you do. You have to love the industry you’re in.

Fragrances were born as soon as man began walking upright and discovered fire. Logs of cedarwood and oak were thrown into the fire and fragrant smoke drifted upwards. Prehistoric man had released the beautiful scents of trees and plants. He would burn these materials and create scents that would honor his gods and protect him from evil spirits and illness.
Each geographic area has its own flora and fauna, and they produce different scents. Even in today’s world, different cultures and localities prefer different scents. And we are always challenged to produce globally-pleasing fragrances.
Fragrances are still used for spiritual and medicinal purposes, but in the beauty industry, we want to make things smell good. Fragrances mask the maladies of our world and please our sense of smell. We use fragrance to adorn our bodies and improve our surroundings. For most, their fragrance is their final accessory used to complete the way they look and feel.
The natural materials used for the creation of fragrances have remained the same for centuries. We still use all types of plants and all different parts of the plant, including flowers, roots, leaves, stems, grass, bark, wood, and seeds. We obtain their oils through a variety of methods.
Distillation: We distill the plant materials using steam and water to obtain the oils.
Extraction: We extract their precious essences using carbon dioxide or other volatile solvents.
Expression: We express the oils using abrasion and pressure. This method is especially used for citrus oils so that no heating is involved.
At one time, we used by-products from animals, such as ambergris from whales, but we no longer do that. Animal cruelty regulations and the continued decrease in animal populations stopped these practices. We have created animal-type odors using aromatic chemicals.
Organic chemistry has allowed us to create aromatic chemicals which smell similar to natural ingredients and which can be mixed and matched to take the place of natural ingredients. These chemicals are created from petroleum and turpentine. They allow us to produce much larger quantities and provide less expensive materials to work with. Perfumer has a much larger palette of individual odors to turn into beautiful fragrances.
For the perfumers, raw materials are their notes, their inspiration, their language, and the components of their olfactive memories. One thing remains the same. We identify the materials we work with to create fragrances by the way they smell. We classify them in the same way that visual artists classify colors and musicians classify sounds.

Humans possess five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Taste and smell are also referred to as chemical senses because they provide us with information about changes in the chemistry of our environment.
Chemical senses are the oldest of our senses and are used by all animals, including man, to survive in an environment. Our sense of smell is used for many reasons, including the following:
* Communication and recognition
Regarding communication, pheromones are scent-signals between members of the same species, while allelochemicals are scent-signals between members of different species.

Regarding recognition, a baby can recognize its mother by the way she smells, and vice versa.

* Finding food
Our sense of smell can also be used to find food and assess its quality. The chemical degradation of food produces chemicals known as amines. This is why rancid food smells bad. It is our signal not to eat that food even if it looks perfectly fine.

* Defense
Smells can also be a defense mechanism. We can smell smoke long before we can see the flames of a fire. We have also added a smelly chemical called mercaptan to natural gas so we can smell a gas leak in our home even if there is no sound or the gas is invisible to the naked eye.

* Pleasure
Studies have shown that the smell of something can produce feelings of pleasure or displeasure. This is because our sense of smell is closely related to the part of the brain that controls our feelings and emotions.

* Memory
A smell can also trigger a memory quickly and accurately. This is because the scent-signals in the brain go directly to the part of the brain that deals with memory and emotion.
Our sense of smell is particularly important to our quality of life. When choosing our fragrances for our beauty products, we want to produce feelings of pleasure on the part of the consumer.

The major categories of the beauty industry are color cosmetics, skincare, haircare, and fragrance. Expanding personal care is becoming much more important. The men’s space is booming, and wellness is having an enormous impact on beauty.
The future of beauty is bright. During the pandemic, beauty expanded into self-care and wellness. There’s a continual blurring of lines between products. For example, we call it the “skinification” of hair, the “skinification” of makeup, the “skinification” of the body. Products are getting better all the time. They not only make consumers look better, but they also make them feel better.
That will continue to be an important trend. The future of beauty has a lot to do with health and wellness, and inner and outer beauty. When you look good, you feel good. When the planet is healthy, people are healthy.
Beauty is a part of it and helps to drive that conversation. This will continue as we all celebrate the new normal, and the individuality and self-expression we cherish. Beauty is a key voice. It enables people to express how they feel and serves as a visible manifestation of personal values.
As beauty is evolving, it’s exciting to see how the industry is not only keeping up but it’s also leading the way for changes that are happening at a socio-cultural level.

The first thing to say about the mindset of a leader is there needs to be vision. A leader needs to be looking forward.

There’s one professor who talks about seeing around corners- having the ability to see what’s coming and predict that. The other part of the mindset is comfort with ambiguity and comfort with uncertainty. Some people call it agility. What I’ve heard agility defined as is ‘Knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do.’ I think that’s really important for anybody who’s leading these kinds of efforts.

It’s that spark of creativity and the ability to see themselves as an innovator, and to really motivate the team as well. To draw out the best and create the right kind of environment for their team.

There needs to be that element of empathy, first of all. To understand other people aren’t walking in their shoes and to understand what they’re going through. Leadership today isn’t about command and control. It’s about coaching and coaching people to bring them along. As a leader, you’re not so much concerned about your own creativity. It’s about drawing the creativity out of other people. It’s about setting the right kind of conditions that are going to allow people to be creative.

A concept that’s being talked about quite a bit today is the element of psychological safety. You’re going hear that term quite a bit. You’ll probably hear about it more in the future, but it is about leaders who create the right environment, the right conditions, and the right climate where people feel comfortable to bring their ideas forward. They can go to their boss or they their leader, look them in the eye, and tell them the truth without fear of reprisal.

Beauty companies have a choice when it comes to formulating. Here’s an inside look on the different processes beauty companies can take in the beauty business.
The formulation can be a stressful journey for a founder because there are so many different logical paths that you can take to get there. You can be as extreme as doing it completely in-house, purchasing a lab, hiring a chemist, purchasing all the material, doing it yourself, or self-production.

The other extreme is white labeling something that exists. Which for some brands that work, for other brands it doesn’t. You’re pre-purchasing a formula that already exists, slapping your logo onto it and then you are bringing it into your distribution channel. FACULTY is in the middle.

What we do at FACULTY is work with some of the best suppliers and formulators in the industry to put together custom formulas. Have them tailored to how we want them in a way that we believe is going to add value to the customer.

Now, what does that mean?

That means working with our advisors who have spent almost 30 years at some of the biggest makeup brands, who have created some of the makeup brands and skincare brands you probably use today, and determining what makes sense for the skin type we’re going after.

When we think about the differences, the male skin type is much more porous, which means that grime, dirt, dust, debris get into your pores, clog them, and give you acne and all other skin problems that come from that. What we’ve realized is that the makeup products that exist on the market, do the same thing because they’re made with comedogenic ingredients and comedogenic ingredients clogs your pores.

What we’ve said at FACULTY is whenever we get the chance, we will always make it with non-comedogenic ingredients. This means the products are better for your skin chemically, and leave you feeling good about what’s on your face and not worried about getting acne or any other skincare, irritations, and problems.

We take all these design principles from trying to build a premium formula to thinking about the skin type we’re going after to the experience of pumping a product into your hand or taking it out of a bottle.

We triangulate all of those together to come to a formula that we believe works for the market and our customers.

Like all other consumer-based industries in recent decades, the beauty industry has undergone an enormous change. There are a lot of reasons for this.

The internet has impacted every possible business on the globe. This is partly to blame for the changes within the beauty industry. But I think the beauty industry is also very cyclical.

It goes through periods when larger brands and corporations are very powerful. Then it switches to periods where small businesses dominate the industry.

Until around a decade ago, the beauty industry was all about the big companies. We’re all familiar with Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Avon, and Revlon. They’re the most well-known beauty brand across the world.

But we’re now at a point in the cycle where the beauty industry is much more consumer-driven and customers are much more excited about smaller businesses. And it’s not just the beauty industry. It’s also the fashion and food industries too. The small players aren’t faced with the same challenges that they use to be.

The Internet has enabled any business, no matter how big or small, to become global. They can create a stunning website and build their social media accounts to grow an audience quickly. The internet has given businesses the chance to grow but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will have the resources to keep up with this growth.

But this is much less challenging than it used to be. It’s less expensive and requires fewer resources. The barriers to entry are much smaller but you usually need a large volume of resources to keep your business going.

The biggest shift in the industry is the move towards smaller businesses. The second biggest shift is the shift in consumerism.

The beauty industry is now more personal and consumer involvement is tenfold what it was just 15-20 years ago.