Arden and Rubinstein: The Beauty Queens

Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, the dynamic duo who helped lay the groundwork for the beauty industry.  The obstacles these women faced in the early 20th century would have seemed insurmountable but incredibly, not only did they change the way women viewed and took care of themselves, they proved women could also succeed in the corporate world of men.

Ironically, these two rivals never met but from all I've read their lives were oddly similar.  Both were born  into poverty yet understood luxury, both first married Americans and went on to second marriages to royals with dubious titles.  Neither woman was formally educated but both had brief medical training and helped develop their own products, both succeeded with little financial aid and reinvested their own money, both worked endlessly until the day they died and both companies survive to this day.  Oh, and they were both Capricorns too!

When these ladies began in the early 20th century, a clear complexion was considered one of a woman's greatest assets.  Make-up was only acceptable for performers and never for proper women.  Prostitutes wore it gaudily and unskillfully applied their "face paint".  Beauty parlors at this time emphasized haircare over skincare and creams were heavy and greasy with unpleasant odors.

Elizabeth Arden would help change all that with, "To be beautiful and natural is the birthright of every woman."  She was born Florence Nightingale Graham ca.1878 in Woodbridge, Canada.  She dropped out of high school before training as a nurse but disliking the profession, she worked a variety of jobs excelling in sales.  In 1908, she joined her brother in NY and landed a bookkeeping job for the Squibb Pharmaceutical Company whose modern labs and research & development efforts deeply impressed her. 

She left Squibb to work for Eleanor Adair and was inspired by her skincare focused beauty parlor.  Lacking the funds to start her own business, she partnered with Elizabeth Hubbard in 1910.  She felt her name was reminiscent of a hospital so only Hubbard's name was on the door though the products were Florence's.  Believing price would be a factor directly related to the perceived quality of a product, she charged plenty and called her line Grecian giving it a romantic appeal as she would with all her future creations.

Florence knew she had to bring her products to the wealthy.  Though unaffordable, she insisted on leasing part of a brownstone on 5th Avenue which was quickly growing into an upscale business district.  However, the partnership quickly dissolved leaving Florence to borrow $6000 from her brother to keep her salon open and she worked as a manicurist off duty to earn more income.  Her door was painted bright red and it's brass plate carried a new name, a combination of Hubbard's first name and Tennyson's poem "Enoch Arden".

Arden hired chemist A. Fabian Swanson to create the light, velvety face Cream Amoretta and Ardena Tonic for her new Venetian line and she used sophisticated packaging worthy of the line's pricing.  She developed the "makeover" and her "total beauty" idea which combined skincare, nutrition and exercise.  In 1914, she opened her second salon in Washington DC and sailed to Paris to learn advanced techniques and treatments.  She brought back with her eye makeup which though disreputable in America, was being worn by chic Parisian women.  It wasn't an instant hit but WWI forced many women into the workplace who began to care about their appearances in public and share a sense of liberation.   

Helena Rubinstein opened her NY salon that same year marking the beginning of their famed rivalry.  "That woman", Arden called her.  Yet the times couldn't have been more opportune for them.  They had few competitors and the industry was growing wildly.  In 1925, women spent $6 million on cosmetics, Arden earned $2 million that year which doubled by 1930.  In accordance with the emancipation movement, women were cropping their hair and wearing makeup as gestures of defiance and rebellion.  In short, the climate was perfect for beauty queens.

 
In January of 1930, Arden moved up 5th Avenue into the new Aeolian Building where her flagship store is still located today.  By the mid-30s, Arden had 29 salons around the world and fine department stores carried her products including her innovative travel sized containers.  She aggressively advertised and from 1920-1940 her patented trademark image of French model Cecille Bayliss wearing a nun's wimple like head wrap was seen everywhere.  Both Arden and Rubinstein would pursue this pure and sterile imagery.  They took a scientific approach to beauty and were often photographed in their white lab coats.  Their employees wore white uniforms.  Women responded because it offered reassurance that beauty was finally being taken seriously and that any woman could attain it.  They identified with Arden and Rubinstein who both looked younger giving credence to the promise their products actually worked.

Arden continued to earn tremendous profits during the depressed 1930s, expanding her 5th Avenue salon to seven floors.  Her lipstick kits were a great success, containing 6 shades when lipsticks were available in only a few basic colors.  This fueled her "Total Look" idea which matched or harmonized colors on the eyes, lips, cheeks and nails.  In 1934 she converted her summer home in Maine to the Maine Chance spa and another was opened in Arizona in 1946.  These were the forerunners to health resorts today where women could lose weight, relax and be pampered for the otherworldly sum of $500 per week. In the 1950s she added a clothing line, men's fragrances and  men's boutiques.

She said, "There are no ugly women, only lazy ones." 

Helena Rubinstein's beginnings were as humble as Elizabeth Arden's.  Born Chaja Rubinstein c.1872 in Krakow, Poland, she was the oldest of eight children and was expected to marry the man of her father's choosing.  Chaja refused and went to live with her aunt in Vienna but deciding Europe lacked opportunity for her, she sailed for Australia in 1896 where her three uncles lived, landing in Coleraine to help one with a general store.  Disliking the town but unable to speak English she had little choice but to stay and it turned out to be a stroke of luck.

The flocks of merino sheep being raised there produced not only the finest wool but also lanolin, a grease secreted by the sheep.  She began experimenting with scents to mask the pungent odor and left for Melbourne.  She was a waitress when she met J. T. Thompson, a suitor willing to provide the £100 she needed for her Crème Valaze.  Her main ingredient was an antioxidant extracted from pine bark known today as Pycnogenol and it's believed she developed the cream herself though she claimed the cream was brought from Poland and made by Dr. Jacob Lykusky, a Hungarian chemist.  Her early advertisements used his name but was mysteriously dropped.

She also claimed the herbs were imported from the Carpathian Mountains and charged plenty.  She started selling her cream in Melbourne in 1902 and within two years she had earned enough to move to  upscale Collins Street.  From there she expanded to Sydney and New Zealand.  In 1908, she used $100,000 of her own money to open Salon de Beauté Valaze in London.  Paris came next in 1914, New York in 1915 and soon she had salons in San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Toronto.  Madame, as she was known, became the first female self made millionaire while building the first global beauty enterprise.

Her technique was to first determine skin type and then choose a treatment for her client's unique skin.  Her "Day of Beauty" became a success and she's credited with the first commercial use waterproof mascara in 1939, tube lipstick in 1956 and the Mascara-matic, the first refillable mascara tube and wand applicator in 1958.  She warned women of the sun's effects on the skin and advertised lipstick as protection. "Sunburn is beauty suicide!", exclaimed Madame.  Both companies had sunless tanning and protective lotions well ahead of their time. 

 

 

They understood the merits of a clinical setting, sterile white uniforms, effective marketing and the weight of scientific claims, research and development, celebrity endorsements, inflated pricing and products reflective of the quickly changing times.  Their use of sophisticated packaging evolved into containers that looked more like accessories like the powder compacts and perfume bottles Salvador Dali designed for Rubinstein in the 1940s.  These women promoted skin care, proper diet and exercise as part of a woman's daily regimen and they encouraged a woman's need for a day of pampering simply because it was deserved.  

They may have been loved by grateful women everywhere but their employees described them as tyrants.  Working at Elizabeth Arden was compared to "walking through a revolving door" and if Rubinstein didn't like you, she had your desk removed.  Both were perfectionists and workaholics.  Arden was an insomniac who would call her executives at all hours to "chat".  Where the two differed was in matters of money.  Arden spent lavishly on her business and though demanding, paid large salaries but Rubinstein was loathe to increase pay or benefits.  She ran around turning off lights and took a bagged lunch with her to work everyday.*  

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A few other interesting facts about their business acumen.  During WWII, the women were growing.  Rather than worrying about the losses of their European salons, Arden concentrated on expanding into major American drugstore chains and Rubinstein directed her efforts into South America and Asia.  Even better, in 1929 Arden turned down an offer of $15 million and moved on with record profits despite the hard times.  And Rubinstein's timing couldn't have been more perfect when in 1928 she sold her US business to Lehman Brothers for $7.3 million.  Owing to their mismanagement and the Depression the following year, stock fell from $60 to $3 and she bought back controlling interest.  And they say women don't belong on Wall Street!

Their marriages were also uncannily similar.  In 1908, Helena married American journalist Edward William Titus with whom she had 2 sons.  They divorced in 1937 and in 1938 she married Prince Artchil Gourielli-Tchkonia, a man 23 years younger and of very questionable royal lineage.  He died in 1955 and she spent her remaining years accompanied by Patrick O'Higgins who was 50 years younger.  Their relationship was that of devoted mother and son.  After Elizabeth Arden's two failed marriages to American banker Thomas Jenkins Lewis in 1915 (divorced 1934) and to Russian émigré, pseudo Prince Michael Evlanoff in 1942 (divorced 1944) she never remarried and devoted herself to her passion for racing horses.

Arden established Maine Chance stables in Lexington in 1943 and in 1945 it was the top money earner in US thoroughbred racing.  In 1947, her horse, Jet Pilot, won the Kentucky Derby.  In 1956, Arden added 722 acres and renamed it Maine Chance Farm.  Sadly, it was sold off shortly after her death in 1966.  Perhaps one of her only mistakes was in failing to estate plan to keep inheritance taxes at bay.  Her company had to be sold to pay an enormous tax bill.  Elizabeth Arden Co. was sold to Eli Lilly and Co in 1971 and though she left generous bequests to family and loyal employees, it's unlikely anyone ever saw a penny after litigation.  

Rubinstein's passion was luxury items, as in artwork, fine jewels and couture.  Now this may not sound like the woman who brown bagged it to work every day but her frugality tempered her purchases.  It was said she had “unimportant paintings by every important painter of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”   Several paintings were lower quality with damaged frames and of her eye-popping jewels, Kenneth Jay Lane noted many stones were flawed and settings damaged.  

To be fair to Madame, at the time of the auctions after her death in 1965, much of her collection wasn't as appreciated as it is today particularly her drawings by the likes of Brancusi, Degas, Picasso and Matisse.  To illustrate her foresight; the Bangwa Queen (pictured above), an African art statue that fetched only $29,000 in 1966 sold in 1990 for $3,410,000.  Her Brancusi statue, La Negresse Blanche, brought in $8 million later that year.  Her greatest legacy was the Helena Rubinstein Foundation established in 1953 which just recently ceased operations.  It has distributed over $130 million in grants, primarily to education and community organizations in NYC. 

Despite ever changing hands, both companies survive today.  Elizabeth Arden went from Eli Lilly to Fabergé to Unilever to FFI, a NY group who publicly listed the company which has annual sales exceeding $1.1 billion.  It was recently announced that her spa will move two blocks south into the Ferragamo building on 5th Avenue but the retail store will remain in the historic Aeolian building.

Colgate-Palmolive bought Helena Rubinstein in 1973 and sold it in 1980 to Albi Enterprises for only $20 million due to diminishing sales in the USA. L'Oreal bought it in 1988 and have since revived the brand with their Hydra Collagenist and Prodigy lines.  Demi Moore is their current spokesmodel.

Arden was speaking for both of them when she claimed her goal was "to be the richest little woman in the world".  There were no such wealthy lists like the Forbes 100 today but certainly, if there were, these beauty queens would have graced them.  They turned makeup into magic and made women everywhere feel more comfortable in their own skin.  Really, what a shame they never met, they would have had so much to talk about!

Falls Avenue Vintage Fashion

Main Sources:

*http://www.amazon.ca/War-Paint-Rubinstein-Elizabeth-Rivalry/dp/0471487783#reader_0471487783

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/03/28/110328crbo_books_gladwell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Rubinstein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Arden

http://www.amazon.com/Ugly-Beauty-Rubinstein-Blemished-History/dp/0061740403#reader_0061740403

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