American Beauty

A pioneer is someone who settles and develops new territory. So it’s a pretty apt word to use when we talk about Elizabeth Arden (born Florence Nightingale Graham in 1878).

When it came to skincare and makeup, the landscape she found when she migrated from Ontario, Canada, to New York in 1908 was primitive. In those days, most women used glycerin and rose water to look after their skin – there was no concept of beauty products, treatments or experiences. Arden changed that. Her philosophy: To be beautiful and natural is the birthright of every woman.

Her beauty career started when she took a job as an apprentice in a New York skin-treatment parlour and began to learn the business. Two years later, she borrowed US$6,000 (now worth around US$140,000 or S$196,000) from her brother, changed her name to Elizabeth Arden and set about inventing the US beauty industry.

She started with a three-room salon on Fifth Avenue, painting the front door red to make sure it stood out (hence the brand’s Red Door salons and perfume) and began to develop her own products. Business was so brisk she repaid her brother’s loan six months later.

The backbone of the company was innovation. She was reportedly the first to employ a chemist to develop skincare products – her earliest success story was Venetian Cream Amoretta, a moisturiser with the texture of whipped cream (other moisturisers at the time were greasy and heavy).

On a trip to Paris in 1914, she noticed that fashionable women there wore mascara and rouge. So she developed blushers, tinted powders, mascaras and eyeshadow for women in the US. Previously, only actresses and ladies of ill repute “painted” – it was seen as something almost as disgraceful as smoking. She made it a sign of culture.

By 1925, the company had salons in London, Paris, Nice and all over the US. Arden said: “There are only three American names known in every corner of the globe: Singer sewing machines, Coca-Cola and Elizabeth Arden.”

In 1930, she introduced the original Eight Hour Cream, named because a client claimed it cured her son’s scraped knee in eight hours. The same year, she was introduced to horse racing and opened her own stable, where she insisted the cream was used on her horses’ chafed spots. She also told her grooms to use her toner to rub down the horses and scented the stables with perfume – anyone who dared disagree with that was sacked.

This approach wasn’t limited to her stables. Competitors called her company a “revolving door” because she fired so many people. She was quoted as telling staff, “Dear, never 
forget one little point. It’s my business. You just work here.”

In the ’30s she created the makeover – mascara, rouge, lipstick and powder in colours that matched skin tone and complemented each other. She invented the destination spa when she opened Maine Chance, which offered pampering, as well as diet and fitness advice.

Married twice, she famously forbade the first of her two husbands, Thomas Lewis (whom she married in 1918), from holding stock in her company, even though he worked as her business manager. When she divorced him in 1935, he exacted revenge by getting a job with her arch rival, Helena Rubinstein.

In 1946, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine, which said of her, “She tolerates no tomfoolery or inefficiency. She has her own ideas of perfection and demands it of her employees, even if a chemist has to spend days remaking a colour until Arden herself thinks it is ‘paradise pink’.”

But it was these high standards that 
were essential to the brand’s success – by 
the time she died in 1966, it was grossing 
around US$60 million per year, with 17 Elizabeth Arden corporations and 40 salons around the world.

The icons
Since Arden died, the brand has continued to break new ground.

1989 Red Door, the brand’s rich floral fragrance, is launched. Over 50 million bottles have been sold since.

1990 The first single-dose skincare capsules, Ceramide Advanced Time Complex, is introduced. It delivers lipids to the skin’s surface to help it appear smooth and glowing.

1996 The brand pays tribute to its Fifth Avenue origins by launching a citrus/floral scent with the same name.

1999 The world gets a whiff of Green Tea. It now has a full line of fragrances, and bath and body luxuries.

2002 Catherine Zeta-Jones is named global spokesperson for the brand. Nine years on, she still is.

2005 The brand launches Prevage, the first cosmeceutical. It has idebenone, one of the most powerful antioxidants in the world.

2008 Pure Finish Mineral Makeup, the brand’s newest foundation, arrives. It comes in a pot with a grinder that ensures freshly ground makeup with one twist. The idea comes from the Swiss Twist, a metal compact with a grinder to deliver just the right amount of powder, which was invented by Elizabeth Arden in the 1930s.
 

Captions:
1, 3 & 4 Maine Chance, the world’s first destination spa. Facilities included bowling alleys and a speedboat.
Guests paid $250 per week. 2 Elizabeth Arden at the start of her career. 5 & 6 Eight Hour Cream was invented in 1930 and was a combination of petrolatum and vitamin E. 7 & 8 The famous red door at 691 Fifth Avenue, then and now. The brand’s headquarters has been there since 1930. 9 Clockwise from top right: Green Tea EDT. Pure Finish Mineral Makeup and its inspiration, Swiss Twist