Be honest, humble and always acknowledge and share the credit, kudos and thanks to your Team and individuals who were alongside you with encouragement, or doing the heavy lifting that helped you to get to the finish line. It takes a village!
Asa part of our series about “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicholas Gavrelis.
Visionary, make-up artist, and product development authority Nick Gavrelis, known for his passionate and sensitive approach, is a veritable beauty industry expert with more than 30 years of experience. He began as a commercial and M·A·C Retail Make-Up Artist to become Nordstrom’s first National Beauty Director in 1994 and on to lead Artist Training & Development for M·A·C, North America East, until he caught the entrepreneurial bug to create Pretty Pretty, his first beauty brand. 3 years later, he returned to M·A·C, this time for a stint that would last almost 2 decades and give him guru status, where he would rise to Senior Vice President of Global Product Development and create some of the industry’s most iconic and loved products.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
During my time at University, I dreamt and aspired to become a world class fashion/commercial photographer. I began photo assisting an established photographer and quickly became adept at designing her lighting and supporting her shoots. One day, on a particular shoot, our Make-up Artist called in ill and the photographer said to me, “Nick, you understand how your lighting will affect the face and you can envision what I am looking for…could you please step in and do make-up and styling… That’s where my love affair with make-up and revealing the authentic beautiful light of each person began and that love is just as strong to this day.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
One of my most cherished professional experiences, was leading development for a very special collaboration/collection for M·A·C, called Make-up Masters. It was comprised of 3 curated collections of high-performance trend make-up working with 3 of the world’s most prolific fashion/editorial make-up artists. including Diane Kendal, Kabuki and James Kaliardos. I consider all three of them brilliant visionaries and they each had very different ideas, priorities and working styles, which with short, development lead time for fast-fashion can present challenges. It reinforced in me and the Team, the importance of adapting our working style to each of them to best capture and champion what was important to their unique collections and how to unite them in a cohesive consumer experience.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
When I finally realized and accepted the fact, that not everyone is going to like everything I do or create. And that’s ok! There is great value in that and important lessons to learn why something is not liked. Understanding why, allows you to refine and make better and grow an idea into an even better reality. Always encourage feedback and listen, no matter how hard it may be to hear… always thank those who share honest, unbiased feedback! However, I also learned, to believe strongly in my vision — especially, when all of my love and heart-felt intent was invested from start to finish. That love and commitment makes all the difference and can be felt by others.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Yes, most definitely! In the late 90’s, I embarked on my first entrepreneurial beauty venture, with my best friend to build a little indie beauty brand. We were undercapitalized and I had to make the difficult decision to step away from the little brand I loved so much. Thanks to 2 stupendous mentors, Jennifer Balbier and John Demsey,for believing in me and bestowing the opportunity of a lifetime to come back to MAC and be immersed in Global Product Development. There I was able to further hone my expertise and passion for product development, innovation and branding. This prepared me to eventually lead Global Product Development for the brand. Their belief in me gave me the confidence and a strong sense of loyalty. It also provided me with the most enriched and intensive learning opportunities and face to face exposure to truly great world class leaders in the industry, who with gratitude, I am still in awe of today.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The global beauty industry today has grown to more than a half a trillion dollar business. Can you tell us about the innovations that you are bringing to the industry? How do you think that will help people?
This industry is truly remarkable and resilient in it’s ever evolving to pivot towards the consumer. For ieró Beauty™, there is a unique space for us in an unmet consumer need. This need is for products that further blur the boundaries between skincare and color and that provide efficacy and fuse holistic self-care and mindfulness together through a multi-sensorial, multi-use, multi-function approach. The aim of this approach is to help calm, replenish, restore and revitalize the authentic radiance not only of the consumers’ skin, but of their whole-self. Our debut innovation for ieró Beauty™ begins with our Moonkissed™ range of evening skincare and lip care products. They are plant-based, crystal-infused, clean and mindful multi-use products and include our Serene Essence Replenishing Mist, Radiant Skin Restorative Serum-Oil, Radiant Moisture Restorative Emulsion and Luminous Ph Lip Comforter in 5 unique to you shades. We will introduce daytime skincare and lip care and start to build color and complexion categories over the next 3 years.
Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the modern beauty industry?
- Today the consumer is more knowledgeable than ever before about ingredients, product application and make-up artistry. Everyone believes they are an “expert.” This ups the stakes and makes creating new product innovation more exciting and exacting than ever before.
- The huge and ever-growing consumer appetite for sustainable, clean, vegan and high naturality products, fused with performance and efficacy, has brands scrambling to change, evolve and satisfy the consumer. This puts the pressure on the Laboratories and R&D Teams and legislature to help govern and grow clean and natural beauty. Better and safer products for you and the planet!
- Innovation in raw ingredients, technology and manufacturing have grown a diverse and exciting array of new product forms blurring the boundaries between skincare and make-up… The consumer wins now, more than ever with exciting options
Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to improve the industry, what would you suggest?
I’m thrilled to say, I see unprecedented change and progress over the past decade in the Beauty Industry, that to me is exciting and inspiring. This Industry has made a real commitment to embrace and accelerate change in regards to:
- Diversity & inclusion
- More body positive messaging and the dismantling of “the Beauty Myth.” Standard
- Sustainability and Responsibility
Therefore, this positive change unfolding before our eyes requires brands to pivot, champion, support and amplify this progress and commit to an ever-evolving, constant improvement model. In other words, to identify what is truly important to the consumer, stand up for it and mirror it back with authenticity and conviction.
You are an expert about beauty. Can you share a few ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”?
You made me blush! Through my 30+ years in the industry as Make-up Artist, Educator, Product Developer and Brand Founder, the most important thing I have learned is that authentic beauty and confidence come from within and radiate outwards. Through nurturing your own heart-based, self-love and the love and gratitude for others daily, you truly radiate from within a more beautiful confident luminosity that captivates. This radiance, is your true authentic beauty!
Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, Can you please share “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”. Please share a story or an example, for each.
These 5 universal things, I am still refining and learning from, but they are proven things that help with mastering not only one’s career, but also life.
- Remember to make friends and keep harmonious relationships/connections across every aspect/discipline within the industry. I’ve found the guidance, advice and encouragement from this multi-discipline network to be invaluable.
- The answers, insight and guidance you urgently need may not always be within you or apparent to you, but they are always in the room, or within your reach (network).
- Take a Boots on Ground approach — A Leonard Lauder adage to encourage you to go meet your consumer where they are… Go to them. Experience, listen, learn from them, market by market.
- Be honest, humble and always acknowledge and share the credit, kudos and thanks to your Team and individuals who were alongside you with encouragement, or doing the heavy lifting that helped you to get to the finish line. It takes a village!
- Get out of your own way and fears… Stay the course, reach out, follow up and don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice when you need it.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. ☺
I am just an ordinary person who believes that we all need to work harder to be present. Return to your breath meditatively, whenever you feel negativity, self-doubt, or you feel your emotional triggers are being set off… take a moment for yourself, shift focus, shift breathing and shift feeling and come back to being present with a more positive point of view.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Keep your mind and heart open to limitless possibilities and you will be amazed by what manifests around and within you.” This quote fell into my lap 3 years ago and instantly resonated comfort, truth and hope within me. It inspired me to create ieró Beauty™ and I continue to repeat it each day as needed.
How can our readers follow you online?
@iero.beauty on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
@nicholasgavrelis on Instagram
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.