Erica Siciliano
“My clients feel like they need help because their idea of themselves is evolving, and they’re trying to recognize who they are now.”
Erica is an energy life coach and former beauty executive who’s spent her career working to improve minds, bodies, faces, and souls. In a previous life she was Global Director of Education for 111SKIN, Vice President, Education & Artistry, for MAKE UP FOR EVER, and at M·A·C Cosmetics she served as Executive Director of Global Education (Artist Training and Development).
What is either a beauty or coaching buzzword that should go away?
The one that jumps out to me immediately is authenticity. I often encounter it in the coaching world, but I hear it a lot in beauty as well. I coach many entrepreneurs, and they often use phrases like “I want to be my authentic self.”
It feels like a bandaid. It's like when you talk to somebody who says, “I know I talk too much,” and then they continue to talk too much. Acknowledging you talk too much and then still talking too much does not eradicate the issue. You haven’t improved anything, and there’s no real growth. What happens with authenticity, like with any buzzword, is people feel when they’ve verbalized it, recognized it, they’ve achieved it.
So, what are people really talking about when they say “authentic?” They’re saying, “I want you to perceive me in a way that feels like you can connect to me. I'm real. I want you to believe what I'm telling you.” My clients feel more like they need help because their idea of themselves is evolving, and they’re trying to recognize who they are now. For companies, it skews more to perception. Can we prove we have a pulse and a soul?
If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the beauty industry, what would it be?
I wish it was less homogenized and that brands would stick to what they do best instead of trying to be everything to everybody.
Anastasia Beverly Hills just did brows and blew everybody out of the water. You'll succeed when you focus like that because no other brand would be more of an expert than you. Be the eyebrow or color brand, or just do lips and eyes. I wish brands stood in their power and simply owned a category. Give each other space to be great at something.
Once brands move away from the founder’s vision and start catering to investors, shareholders, and the MBA crowd, the focus starts to drift. Everyone goes in like a shark wanting more market share. Take skincare. All these beauty brands with zero experience in skincare want to jump in and put their logo on all these homogenized products. It's a waste of energy, a waste of people, and a waste of time.
That's why M·A·C was so successful for so long, because we listened to what felt good for us. We didn’t force anything. Decision-making was innate and came from the creative team, not outside stakeholders.
“Do your own exploration, because makeup is art, and all artistry involves getting your hands dirty.”
What’s the best lesson you learned from your worst boss?
It's not my fault when someone doesn't like me for seemingly no reason. I'm not supposed to try to make people like me. That doesn’t fall squarely on me. I learned that from someone who was, in retrospect, perhaps my greatest teacher.
I was so different than her, and I tried so hard for her to like me. That was never going to happen. It’s one of those lessons you learn repeatedly because I’d been in situations like that before. You could be great at your job and go the extra mile, which can be confusing. When people don't like you, and you've done nothing, just walk down a different street; they're just not your people.
In my coaching work, I tell people that if something feels too hard, then you're not supposed to be doing it. Stop trying to swim against the current; don’t get stuck. If a person in your life is like having your hand on a hot stove, would you take your hand off of the hot stove or keep it on the hot stove?
What advice do you give people who want to get into makeup artistry?
I tell them to go start working at a makeup counter. Don't just watch YouTube or TikTok. Go start putting makeup on people. Touch product, be surrounded by product all the time, play with it, and put it on yourself. Do your own exploration, because makeup is art, and all artistry involves getting your hands dirty.
I noticed something recently about some high-level makeup artists who have brands. You give them real people and they can't do their makeup. They can only do makeup on models, and that's a different skill set. To be able to do makeup on a face other than your own … that's when you will really hone your craft. I think of phenomenal artists like Terry Barber, who can do a fantastic look with nothing but a coffee-brown eye pencil. His practical experience, working with various faces adds to his ingenuity.
Terry Barber On Beauty (Instagram)
What's your favorite outdoor space?
I used to have a roof deck on the 39th floor of a building in New York City. From there, I could see the Hudson and all the buildings of downtown Manhattan. It was strangely peaceful because you could hear a hint of sirens and city noise, but it wasn’t blaring.
Whether I'd been out too late or woken up too early, I loved to sit out there in the quiet of the night. It captured how the city can live and breathe like the people who live there. As human beings we're not all peace and quiet. Sometimes we're a little chaotic, and sometimes we're a bit wild, and sometimes we're beautiful, and sometimes we're ugly. That's what I've always loved about New York, and that's why it's my home always, even though I don't live there now. Yeah, New York City, in the middle of the night, on a roof deck, in the quiet.