Cool Runways

After going from a stint in the Air Force to becoming a backstage mainstay, Erin Parsons knows the power of makeup. Maybelline New York’s new global makeup artist shares the knowledge she’s gleaned from two decades in the business.

- Cotton Codinha

“There’s this bizarre energy that happens in my life,” says Maybelline New York’s new makeup guru, Erin Parsons, of the fortuitous turns her career has taken. “Maybe I’m a witch.” Or maybe she’s a hard worker: Parsons has spent the past 20 years turning her passion for beauty into a profession—first at makeup counters for brands like Lancôme and M.A.C and then backstage learning, well, everything alongside then boss Pat McGrath. She has the skill set, not to mention tattoos (there’s a lipstick tube on her right hand), to show for it. Now, between collaborating on looks with Gigi Hadid (the ROYGBIV “mermaid eye” that Hadid sports in Maybelline’s ads launched a flurry of YouTube tutorials) and making over the movie stars whose images she used to pin on her wall, Parsons is all business. “I’m so lucky to do this job. It’s crazy to think about where I started. So, yeah, I put everything I have into it.”

How did you start doing makeup for Fashion Week?

I was working at M.A.C [in Ohio] and another artist had come from New York to teach a class, and we became really good friends. Five months later, she became Pat’s main assistant. When I told her I was thinking of moving to New York, she asked if I wanted to work on shows with Pat. I was so scared. When I got there, everyone had their suitcase-size kits, and everything was so organized. The thing that got me in with Pat was that from my counter days, I knew how to work with every skin tone; I knew how to work on every age group; I knew how to do a smoky eye, how to do a wing, brows. What I didn’t know how to do was, like, Margiela looks. The reason that I can do the makeup that I do now is because I was with Pat for six years.

When you worked as a salesperson, did your style change with the brand?