Helena Rubinstein

Cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein was born on December 25, 1872, in the Kazimierz district of Krakow in Poland.

Polish-American cosmetics industrialist Helena Rubinstein (1870-1965)

She was the oldest of eight daughters to shopkeeper Horace – Naftoli Hertz Rubinstein and Gitte (Gitel) Shaindel Rubinstein née Silberfeld.

Helena's mother took a unique approach with raising her daughters: She told them they would wield influence in the world through the powers of beauty and love. To this end, her mother even made her own beauty creams.

Helena Rubinstein's birth house (green) in Kraków. By Zygmunt Put Zetpe0202

Helena Rubenstein was diminutive at 4 ft. 10 in. (147 cm) with a milky complexion thanks to her mother's face creams.

She attended medical school in Cracow for two years. She liked the lab work but was averse to being in a hospital and in the 1890s Rubenstein moved from her native Poland to live with her uncle in Australia.

Helena brought along to Australia a dozen bottles of her mother’s face cream, made from combinations of herbs, almonds and Carpathian fir tree extract.

She started selling her own face creams based on her mother's recipe. Costing ten pence and selling for six shillings, the creams were a huge success with regional women.

Rubenstein opened the country's first beauty salon in Melbourne's fashionable Collins Street in 1902. Sydney followed a few years later.

In 1905 she headed to Europe to study advances in skin treatments. Rubenstein studied with European dermatologists and opened further salons in London (1908) and Paris (1912).

Helena Rubinstein by Paul César Helleu (1908)

When World War I began, Rubenstein emigrated to New York and launched an international business empire.

"Madame" set cosmetic trends, introducing waterproof mascara, foundation make-up, and all- day spa treatments. She borrowed the idea of color-shaded eyes from the French stage. Rubeinstein stressed the scientific preparation of her products and instruction of clients in their use.

Rubenstein's success was spiced by a 50-year feud with arch-rival Elizabeth Arden.

She created the Helena Rubinstein Foundation in 1953 to fund organizations for children's health.

Her many other philanthropies included the endowment of a contemporary art museum in Tel Avivv, Israel.

Helena Rubinstein 1959 Tel Aviv Museum of Art

A lifelong advocate for healthy living and self-care, Rubinstein died in New York City on April 1, 1965, at age 94.

A year later, her autobiography, My Life for Beauty, was published.

Sources Biography, Europress Family Encyclopedia 1999

Plastic surgery

Hindu physicians in India practiced the first plastic surgery around 600BC. They created new noses for people whose real noses had been amputated, a punishment often applied for such offences as adultery. The physicians cut triangular pieces of skin from the patient's cheek and sewed the graft in place, covering the nasal opening. The patient then breathed through reeds placed in their nostril.

The term "plastic surgery" was coined in 1839, 70 years before plastic was even invented. It comes from the Greek word "plastikē" which means "sculpting" and has nothing to do with plastic.

The first face-lift was performed by Eugene Hollander on "a victim of the arts of feminine persuasion" in 1901 in Berlin.

The father of modern plastic surgery is generally considered to have been Sir Harold Gillies (June 17, 1882 – September 10, 1960). A New Zealand otolaryngologist working in London, he developed many of the techniques of modern facial surgery in caring for soldiers suffering from disfiguring facial injuries usually from gunshot wounds during the First World War.

Walter Yeo, a sailor injured at the Battle of Jutland, before and after plastic surgery in 1917

A new hospital devoted to facial repairs was developed at Sidcup, London. The Queen's Hospital opened in June 1917 and with its convalescent units providing over 1,000 beds. There Gillies and his colleagues developed many techniques of plastic surgery as they sought to repair the wounds and deformities soldiers suffered in the war. These new procedures included better artificial limbs and improved skin grafts.

More than 11,000 operations were performed on over 5,000 men at The Queen's Hospital, which later became Queen Mary's Hospital.

The Queen's Hospital was located at Frognal House, the birthplace and property of Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney after whom Sydney, Australia was named.

Dutch surgeon Johannes Esser perfected the skin graft inlay technique used by Harold Gillies on wounded soldiers during World War Two.

Cosmetic face-lifts became commonplace in the twenties. In Paris there was even the "lunchtime face-lift".

Plastic surgery soon entered popular culture. The 1929 song "I'm A Gigolo," written by Cole Porter and recorded by Leslie Hutchinson, had these lines: "Go to one of those nightclub places. And you’ll find me stretching my braces. Pushing ladies with lifted faces round the floor."

By the beginning of the 21st century cosmetic plastic surgery had become hugely popular. Women regularly spent $100 (£70) for a head of highlights and popped out in their lunch hour to have a $300 (£200) botox injection.

Dr.  Donda West, the mother of rapper Kanye West, tragically died at the age of 58 on November 10, 2007 due to heart problems resulting from her cosmetic surgery. As a result,  Governor Schwarzenegger signed the "Donda West Law" legislation making it mandatory to prove wellbeing prior to undergoing cosmetic surgery.

Dr Donda West

Cindy Jackson, a Londoner who hails from the American Midwest, holds the world record for undergoing the most cosmetic surgery procedures. By 2011 she had had $100,000 in cosmetic procedures, including three facelifts, two nose operations, two eyelifts, liposuction, lip and cheek implants, knee, waist, abdomen and thigh liposuction, and chin bone reduction.

In 2015 Cindy Jackson founded the International Association of Aesthetic Consultants™ and began the only training program in the world for certified Aesthetic Consultants, the IAAC Masterclass.

Brazilian doctors have been using fish skin to treat burn victims. The piscine layer of tissue is applied to a burn in a similar fashion to skin grafts. Because fish skin is so high in collagen, it's naturally beneficial for burn recovery.

All of the worlds' Botox is made in a factory in Westport, Ireland.

Seoul, South Korea is the plastic surgery capital of the world, where one-third of the women have gone under the knife.

Many Chinese medical tourists who go to South Korea for plastic surgery have difficulty re-entering China due to their passport photos not matching their new face post operation.

India has the oldest plastic surgery patients in the world — more than 54 per cent who undergo operations are over 50.

Source Daily Mail

Perfume

HISTORY

Perfumes were used in the earliest human civilizations. The word perfume used today derives from the Latin per fumum, meaning "through smoke." suggesting that it was first obtained by burning aromatic gums and hardened oozings from resinous woods such as balsam, bdellium, myrrh, and frankincense.

Frankincense

Perfumery, or the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. The earliest form of perfume was incense, which gives off its odor when burned. The first liquid perfumes were prepared as long ago as 3500 BC.

The earliest mention in the Bible of an aromatic substance occurs in Genesis 2:12 in reference to the land of Havilah: "And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium, and the onyx stone."

Bdellium was a fragrant gum resin obtained. from a shrublike tree growing in arid regions of western India. From incisions made in the bark oozed an odoriferous gum that hardened into small, transparent, waxlike pellets resembling fragrant pearls, which early Egyptian women carried about in pouches as perfume. Bdellium was often sold as a cheap aromatic substitute for myrrh.

Egyptian scene depicting the preparation of lily perfume, 4th century BC  Guillaume Blanchard, July 2004,

The world's first recorded chemist is considered to be a woman named Tapputi, a perfume maker who was mentioned in a cuneiform tablet from the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia. She distilled flowers, oil, and calamus with other aromatics then filtered and put them back in the still several times.

The early Egyptians used containers made of wood and clay for their perfumes. Later, the Egyptians invented glass and perfume bottles were one of the first common uses for glass.

Archaeologists uncovered what is believed to be the world's oldest perfumery in Pyrgos, Cyprus dating back more than 4,000 years. At least 60 stills, mixing bowls, funnels and perfume bottles were found in the 43,000-square-foot (4,000 m2) factory.

The Persians developed perfumery to a fine art. They began to master the art of preservation by placing the rose buds in sealed earthenware jars to be later opened for a special occasion.

The Persians also used perfumes after bathing. One could smell civet on a man's beard and musk placed on other parts of the body.

Perfume really came to the fore in Ancient Greece. The Greeks learned how to make perfumes from the Egyptians and Persians and used scent lavishly on their bodies and in their banquet halls. They had perfumes for every part of the body. Scents were designed to clear the mind, cure illness, and win true love. They even scented their wine with violets and roses.

The Greeks believed the gods were perfume's inventors and it was said that the visit of a god or goddess was marked with the sweet smell as a token of their presence.

Perfume held a special place in ancient Greek ceremonies. In Homer's Ulysses, one can read about the practice of anointing the dead bodies with scented oils. During weddings, the bride's maidens wore crowns of hyacinths.

The ancient Greeks also played an important role in the science of perfume by categorizing them by the part of the plant from which they were made and documenting their compositions.

Though perfume played an integral part of Greek society, some of the greatest philosophers like Socrates thought them "effeminate".

Roman patricians anointed themselves with perfume three times a day.

Etruscan perfume vase shaped like a female head, 2nd century BC

After Rome fell, the art of perfumery was lost in Europe and had to be learned again from the Arabs. The Arabs also acquainted Europe with alcohol, the perfect diluting agent and carrier for scent.

The Arabian alchemist, Al-Kindi (Alkindus), wrote in the 9th century a book on perfumes which contained more than a hundred recipes for fragrant oils and medical substances.

The Persian chemist Avicenna introduced the process of extracting oils from flowers by means of distillation, the procedure most commonly used today. He first experimented with the rose. Until his discovery, liquid perfumes were mixtures of oil and crushed herbs or petals, which made a strong scent. Rose water was more delicate, and immediately became popular.

Alcohol-based perfumes were brought to Europe by the Crusaders. Hungary Water was one of the first Alcoholic perfumes developed in Europe, it was originally concocted for Elizabeth of Hungary in 1370. Its recipe included brandy and rosemary flowers. Hungary Water quickly became a fashion necessity with the voguish elite.

France became the perfume center of Europe during the 16th century. This came about as a result of the village of Grasse's tanning industry starting to make lavender-scented gloves for Catherine de Medici, the Queen consort. When these gloves kick-started Europe's craze for fragrances, Grasse became the world's perfume capital.

In mid-16th century Portugal there were twice as many glove perfumers, and three times as many cosmetics experts, as there are teachers.

The variety of eighteenth-century perfume containers was as wide as that of the fragrances and their uses. Sponges soaked in scented vinaigres de toilette were kept in gilded metal vinaigrettes and liquid perfumes came in beautiful Louis XIV-style pear-shaped bottles.

Vintage atomizer perfume bottle

The fragrance market in 1920s France expanded rapidly. Most of the major haute couture, or high fashion, designers had their own perfumes -Chanel, Lanvin, Schiaparelli, and others.

Chanel No 5 perfume was named because Coco Chanel had rejected the first four fragrances presented to her.

One of the tricks of cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder (1906-2004) was spilling her perfume on shop floors. She did this in Paris when a manager of the prestigious Galleries Lafayette was reluctant to place an order. Smelling the scent wafting through the store, customers quickly demanded to know where they could buy it.

FUN PERFUME FACTS

In 1954 there were just 19 perfumes on sale to the public. By 2004 a new fragrance was being launched every three days at an average cost of £25 million.

Perfume is composed of 20%–30% pure perfume essence, Eau de Perfum contains 15%–20%, and Eau de Toilette contains 5%–15%

Two fragrances are included in almost every perfume - the extracts of rose and jasmine flowers.

The faint trace of perfume left in the wake of a passing person is known as sillage.

An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile (easily evaporated at normal temperatures) chemical compounds from plants. Essential oils are "essential" in the sense that it contains the "essence of" the plant's fragrance. The term "essential" used here does not mean indispensable or usable by the human body.

£40m worth of Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds perfume was bought in 2010, making it the best-selling celebrity perfume.

Katy Perry named one of her perfumes after the record "Killer Queen" by Queen. She stated "Freddie Mercury painted the lyrics of this woman who I wanted to be. She seemed very powerful, and she captivated a room when she walked in." Seemingly unbeknownst to the singer, the song was about a high class prostitute.

The faint trace of perfume left in the wake of a passing person is known as sillage.

The most expensive perfume is the Clive Christian No.1 for Men or No.1 for Women at $205,0000 for a 17 ounce bottle.

Sources Daily Mail, Comptons Encyclopedia

Mascara

Mascara is a cosmetic used to darken, color, thicken, lengthen, or define eyelashes.

The word 'mascara' originally comes from the Arabic 'maskharat', meaning 'buffoon' or 'anything ridiculous'.

Mascara being applied. By Manuel Marín - originally posted to Flickr as Rimel,

Ancient Egyptian records from around 4000 BC refer to a substance called kohl that was used to darken eyelashes, eyes, and eyebrows. Kohl was used to mask the eyes, believed to ward off evil spirits and protect the soul, by both men and women.

A Roman woman's recipe for mascara might contain bear fat, ant eggs and squashed flies.

French-born British perfumer and businessman Eugene Rimmel (1820-1887) developed the first commercial non-toxic mascara using the newly invented petroleum jelly. It became so popular that "rimmel" is to this day the word for "mascara" in several languages including French, Italian, Portuguese, Persian, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic.

In 1915, a teenage entrepreneur named T. L. Williams created a mascara for his sister Maybel after she used a mixture of petroleum jelly, burnt cork and coal dust to darken her eyelashes. He adapted it with a chemistry set and sold it locally.

A couple of years later, Williams started a mail-order business for his cosmetic product, calling it Maybelline Cake Mascara, He advertised it as "the first modern eye cosmetic for everyday use." Williams' mail-order business grew to become the company Maybelline named in honor of the sister who'd given him the original idea.

Beautician and business executive Helena Rubenstein (1870-1965) developed waterproof mascara, as well as the concept of colored powder. She borrowed the idea of color-shaded eyes from the French stage.

By Petar Milošević - Own work, Wikipedia Commons

Bacteria buildup in open tubes of mascara can lead to eye infections.

Mascara is the most commonly worn cosmetic, and women will spend an average of $4,000 on it in their lifetimes.

Make-up

An Ancient Egyptian woman would have had an extremely complicated selection of make-up in many different colors.

Egyptian cosmetics box from the Bronze Age, Hecht Museum, Haifa. By Golf Bravo Own work, CC BY 3.0, Wikipedia Commons

In ancient China and Japan rice powder paint was used to paint faces white. Eyebrows were plucked, and teeth were painted black or gold.

Make-up is mentioned in the Old Testament, such as in 2 Kings 9:30, where Jezebel painted her eyelids—approximately 840 BC—and in the book of Esther, where beauty treatments are described.

“A woman without paint is like food without salt," wrote the Roman philosopher Plautus.

During the 18th Century, there was a high number of incidences of lead-poisoning because of the fashion for red and white lead make-up and powder. This led to swelling and inflammation of the eyes, attacked tooth enamel and caused skin to blacken. Heavy use sometimes resulted in death.

Zinc oxide became widely used as a facial powder in the mid nineteenth century, replacing the more deadly mixture . Other poisonous substances were still being used in eye shadow (lead and antimony sulfide), lip reddeners (mercuric sulfide), and to make one's eyes sparkle (belladonna, or deadly nightshade).

Heavy make-up was not considered socially acceptable during the Victorian era and reports were published warning women of the dangers of using lead and vermilion in cosmetics applied to the face.

An 1889 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painting of a woman applying facial cosmetics

Technology during the silent movie era forced actors to wear multi-colored makeup so the camera could capture their faces properly

Theda Bara, an American actress of the silent film era (Cleopatra, Salome), caused a sensation when she appeared on the screen heavily adorned by the cosmetics of Helena Rubinstein. Rubinstein developed mascara, as well as the concept of colored powder. She borrowed the idea of color-shaded eyes from the French stage and accentuated mouths by reddening them.

Bara in The She-Devil (1918)

Before the 1920s it was social suicide for respectable Western women to wear make-up. Lipstick and eyeliners were associated with actresses and prostitutes. Rouge meant sex and sin. But thanks to Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein and the female longing to imitate the dream images of glamorous movie stars, cosmetic use became acceptable.

Lillian Brown provided makeup  services to nine Presidents of the United States from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton, as well as to Martin Luther King Jr. She stopped Richard Nixon's sobbing before he was about to go on national television to announce his resignation by telling him a funny story so that his makeup wouldn't be ruined.

Lillian Brown, the makeup artist of nine US presidents, stopped Richard Nixon's sobbing before he was about to go on national television to announce his resignation by telling him a funny story so that his makeup wouldn't be ruined.

In the 1970s, women in the Marine Corps were issued makeup kits and had to wear the makeup when they were in uniform.

The budget of the 2013 movie Dallas Buyers Club was so low, they had only $250 for the make-ups. The film's artists were able to work with that, and the film's Makeup and Hairstyling won an Academy Award.

Today's Western make-up claims to be a melange of past styles with a new emphasis on the natural look.

According to a 2004 survey 53% of American women will not leave the house without make-up.

Here is a list of songs with make-up in the title

Lipstick

HISTORY

Red has been universally a protective color since time immemorial to stop evil forces. As one of man's most dangerous zones was thought to be his mouth, lips were originally painted red to stop evil forces entering the body and taking possession of it.

In the ancient Babylonian Epic of Creation it is told that the god Marduk smeared red ochre on his lips before engaging in deadly battle against the dragon Tiamat.

In ancient Greece, red lipstick was a sign that a woman was a prostitute.

In ancient Rome, lipstick was a mark of social rank and was seen as a sign of status for both men and women.

70,000 beetles were necessary to yield the one pound of the carmine dye used by Cleopatra to paint her lips.

Around the turn of the thirteenth century, regal Italian women wore pink lipstick to show they could afford synthetic makeup.

Crimson-stained lips were popular during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England and the queen herself painted on cochineal blended with gum arabic, egg white and fig milk.

The names of 16th century lipsticks included ape’s laugh, chimney-sweep and dying monkey.

The eighteenth century English church denounced lip painting as altering God's most precious gift. In 1770 the English Parliament passed a law stating, “women found guilty of seducing men into marriage by a cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft.”

French cosmetics company Guerlain introduced the first commercially successful lipstick, a pomade of grapefruit mixed with butter and wax in 1880. Until then lip color had been made in the home.

By 1915, lipstick was being sold in America in cylinder metal containers, which had been invented by Maurice Levy. Women had to slide a tiny lever at the side of the tube with the edge of their fingernail to move the lipstick up to the top of the case.

Red lipstick was one of the few things not to be rationed during World War II in the UK, as Churchill believed it boosted morale.

 The U.S. chemist and entrepreneur Hazel Bishop invented the first long-lasting lipstick in the Forties. Marketed as ‘kiss-proof’, its slogan was: "Stays on you . . . not on him."

The government of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia introduced in 1996 a ban against excessive use of lipstick, claiming "such practices were a prelude to illicit sex."

FUN LIPSTICK FACTS

Lipstick can still contain lead, but no more than 20 parts per million; arsenic, but no more than three parts per million; and mercury, but no more than one part per million.

By Idhren - originally posted to Flickr as Lipstick face,Wikipedia commons

Fish scales are used in lipstick to make it shimmer and reflect light.

Known as the "lipstick effect," lipstick sales tend to increase during economic recessions—as well as on rainy days.

The average woman uses her height in lipstick every five years.

Sources Europress Encyclopedia, Allure.com

Lavender

The lavender plant is native to the Old World and can be found from the Canary Islands, Europe across to northern and eastern Africa, the Mediterranean, southwest Asia to southeast India.

The name Lavender derives from Latin "lividus" (bluish) but was influenced by "lavare"  ‎(to wash) due to the use of lavender in washing clothes.

During Roman times, lavender flowers were sold for 100 denarii per pound, which was about the same as a month's wages for a farm laborer.

Lavender Water was distilled by the German Benedictine nun, Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th Century.

A bunch of lavender was worn round the wrist to protect against infection during the Black Death. Lavender has natural antibacterial properties.

Lavender was used to perfume people and clothes in Tudor England. Neither soap or clean water was readily available but lavender water was easily made. Indeed a laundress was known as a lavender.

In 1748 Yardley of London began selling one of the world’s first branded products, their famous lavender water in glass bottles.

Lavenders are sometimes used to prevent infection - such as lavender oil, which was used in World War 1 to disinfect walls and floors of hospitals

Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein was born to an immigrant Jewish family in The Bronx, New York on November 19, 1942. He is one of several design leaders raised in the Jewish immigrant community in the Bronx, along with Robert Denning and Ralph Lauren.

Klein matriculated at, but never graduated from, from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology in 1962. He gained experience designing at other New York shops before launching the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968 with a childhood friend Barry K. Schwartz.

Calvin Klein By David Shankbone - Wikipedia Commons

At first Calvin Klein specialized in designing coats and suits, before expanding into sportswear in the mid-1970s.

Inn the late '70s Calvin Klein launched a designer jeans line, which broke down price barriers by offering a lower-priced line and became a status symbol. They spawned some racy commercials featuring teenage model Brooke Shields which were just the first in a line of controversial ads for their products.

Klein has left his mark with some industry firsts, including making utilitarian men's underwear sexy and the first unisex fragrance, CK One. He was also the first designer to make women’s underwear resembling men’s jockey shorts.

Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men is used by researchers to attract big cats to cameras in the wilderness. Tigers, jaguars and leopards in particular love the smell of the fragrance.

Clavin Klein sold his company in 2003 to Phillips Van Heusen, but he remains active in design direction.

Source About.com

Incense

The Ancient Egyptians were the first to incorporate perfume into their culture. The earliest form of perfume was incense, which gives off its smell when burned. The upper classes fumigated their homes with incense to ward off the foul odors of the crowded lower classes.

The burning of incense was used at first only for the fumigation of Christian buildings. It had no connection with worship for four centuries though Constantine the Great had oils and incense burned in the church of St. John-in-Lateran, which was the home to the early Popes for thousands of years. Even during the reign of Theodosius I in the late fourth century, houses where incense was being used were confiscated as it was frowned upon as pagan.

The earliest authentic reference to the use of incense in the service of the Church is found to be in On The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy by Pseudo-Dionysius who it is thought was a Syrian monk in the early sixth century.

The burning of incense produces phenol, or carbolic acid, an antiseptic widely used during the nineteenth century.

Max Factor

Max Factor was born Maksymilian Faktorowiczr on September 15, 1872 in Lodz, Poland. His mother died when Max was two and his Polish-Jewish father could not afford a formal education for his four children.

At the age of nine, Maksymilian was apprenticed to a Łódź’s wig maker and cosmetician. Years of mixing potions instilled in him a fascination with the human form.

Faktorowicz spent four years in compulsory military service in the Russian Army, where he served in the Hospital Corps.

After his discharge at the age of 22, Faktorowicz opened his own shop in a suburb of Moscow, selling hand-made rouges, creams, fragrances, and wigs.

Faktorowicz's big break came when a travelling theatrical troupe wore his make-up while performing for Russian nobility. He was appointed he official cosmetic expert for the royal family and the Imperial Russian Grand Opera.

Max Factor in 1935, demonstrating his beauty micrometer device. Wikipedia Commons

In 1904, Maksymilian Faktorowicz and his family emigrated to America. He had a fresh start in St. Louis at the 1904 World's Fair, selling his rouges and creams, and operating under the name given to him at Ellis Island, Max Factor.

Factor settled in Los Angeles, seeing an opportunity to provide made-to-order wigs and theatrical make-up to the growing film industry. Max Factor & Company was founded in 1909 by the Polish-Jewish cosmetician for that purpose.

Max Factor created a make-up specifically for Hollywood actors that, unlike theatrical make-up, would not crack or cake. Silent movie stars were eager to sample the “flexible greasepaint”, while producers sought Factor's human hair wigs.

Displays in the Hollywood Museum featuring artifacts and showrooms of Max Factor,

Max Factor introduced cosmetics to the public in the 1920s, insisting that every girl could look like a movie star by using Max Factor make-up.

It was Max Factor who coined the noun "makeup."

Factor developed a reputation for being able to customize makeup to present actors and actresses in the best possible light on screen.

Marlene Dietrich demanded that the father of modern make-up sprinkle half an ounce of real gold dust into her wigs to add glitter to her tresses during filming.

Max Factor's son, Max Factor Jr (1904-96), helped to develop Pan-Cake. It was originally intended for use with the newly developed Technicolor film, but went on to be one of the fastest and largest selling single make-up items of all time.

Inventors.about.com

Eyeliner

Eyeliner first arrived on the scene around 10,000 B.C in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Back then, men also applied it to enhance their looks, accenting their eyes with a heavy, black color, too.

Its original function was more than just making your eyes look big and bright. It was intended to protect eyes from the sun god, as well as to ward of the "evil eye."

Ancient Egyptian women and men wearing kohl eyeliner, from the tomb of Nakht in Thebes (15th century BC).

The lead ions in Ancient Egyptian eyeliner helped produce nitric oxide, which killed bacteria before they could infect the eyes.

Cleopatra wore kohl, an eyeliner made up of ground up minerals, which gave it a smokier appearance rather than the smooth style we're used to.

After the fall of Egypt eyeliners fell out of the fashion in Europe, having little or moderate use during the reign of Greek and Roman empires.

In Asia, eyeliners remained in use, but they did not manage to influence European fashion after it came out from Dark ages into Renaissance and modern age.

Before the 1920s it was social suicide for respectable Western women to wear make-up. The eyeliner was associated with actresses and prostitutes. Thanks to the female longing to imitate the dream images of glamorous movie stars, such cosmetic use became acceptable.

Another reason why eyeliner became popular again was the discovery in 1922 of King Tutankhamun's tomb in a highly-publicized excavation by archaeologists.

Liquid eyeliner was invented in the 1960's when cat-eyeliner became popular.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, heavy eyeliner use has been associated with Gothic fashion and Punk fashion.

There are currently five types of eyeliners; powder-based pencils, wax-based pencils, gel, sheer and Kohl.

Source Good Housekeeping

Eye Shadow

Eye shadow was used in Egyptian burials dating back to 10,000 BC.

Ancient Egyptian men and women wore glitter eye shadow made from the crushed shells of beetles.

Nefertiti bust with eye shadow applied. By Arkadiy Etumyan - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia Commons

Common ingredients in eye shadow make up consist of talc, mica, sericite, magnesium stearate, colorants, and preservatives.

Eau de Cologne

Cologne water, a mildly perfumed toilet water also known as Eau de Cologne, has been made in Cologne, West Germany since 1709.

The original Eau de Cologne is a spirit-citrus perfume launched in Cologne in 1709 by Giovanni Maria Farina (1685–1766), an Italian perfume maker from Santa Maria Maggiore Valle Vigezzo. He named the fragrance after his new hometown. (Eau de Cologne means water from Cologne).

The miracle water composed by Farina was used only as a perfume and delivered to the royal houses in Europe.

Farina's ability to produce a constantly homogeneous fragrance consisting of dozens of monoessences was seen as a sensation at the time.

A single vial of Eau de Cologne cost half the annual salary of a civil servant in the 18th century.

The most popular scent in early America, it was sent as a gift to Lafayette by George Washington while he was President.

The most famous Original Eau de Cologne is 4711, which developed in the late 18th century by Wilhelm Mülhens in Cologne. The scent was named after the house number assigned to the Mulhens Family perfumery's shop during the 1794 French occupation of Cologne.

Napoleon used to bathe in a diluted version of this scent.

On 12 December 2006, the perfumes and cosmetics company Mäurer & Wirtz took over 4711 from Procter & Gamble and expanded it to a whole brand.

Cosmetics

The word “cosmetic” comes from the same root as “cosmos” meaning order or adornment.

The earliest cosmetics known to archaeologists were in use in Egypt in the fourth millennium BC, as evidenced by the remains of artefacts probably used for eye make-up and for the application of scented ingredients

Ancient Egyptians first wore paints, especially around the eyes, as protection from the sun; soon personal adornment became a statement of status.

One of the earliest references to cosmetics is in the Old Testament 2 Kings 9:30, which tells of Jezebel putting on eye make-up.

The immoral and effeminate Assyrian monarch Sardanapalus is reputed to have allowed his passion for cosmetics free rein, thereby emphasizing his penchant to dress and paint himself like a woman; when threatened by the rapid advance of a ruthless enemy, he is said to have ordered a pile of aromatic woods to be lighted and to have placed himself upon it with his concubines and treasures, to be suffocated by the fragrant smoke.

Ancient Greeks kept their cosmetics in intricate boxes. Rouge reddened the cheeks, and various white powders (white lead and chalk) were used for a fair complexion.

The Romans were the most extravagant users of aromatics in history. It was quite customary for men to be heavily perfumed and even the legionaries reeked of the fragrances of the East.

Gladiator sweat and fats of the animals fighting in the arena were sold in souvenir pots outside of the games to improve women's beauty and complexion.

Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century AD encouraged the proclamation of a law to prevent women from tricking husbands into marriage by means of cosmetics.

Cosmetics were regarded in the later Middle Ages as a health threat because many thought they would block vapours and energy from circulating properly. Because men's make-up wasn't as obvious as women's (women wore egg whites over their faces to create a glazed look), it was seen as even more deceptive than women's.

In sober colonial New England makeup was strictly regulated. Tradespeople and poorer citizens were forbidden to wear cosmetics, and those who did were condemned as devil's disciples. Women used chalk, beetroot, crushed rose petals, and ground corn to beautify or protect their complexions.

Men, as well as women, used cosmetics heavily during the mid-18th century. The effect was not a natural one, however, as complexions were made to resemble porcelain. The face was stark white, with lips of bright red.

After the French Revolution the French wanted nothing to do with the aristocracy and gave up elaborate hairstyles and painted faces.

Back in the 1880s, New Yorker David H McConnell spent his school vacations selling Bibles. But he soon realized that the small samples of rose oil perfume, which he gave out with God’s Word, were received with greater enthusiasm than the Bibles themselves. So he founded the California Perfume Company, the forerunner of Avon.

The world's largest cosmetics company is L'Oréal, which was founded by Eugene Schueller in 1909 as the French Harmless Hair Colouring Company

The California Perfume Company, Inc. of New York filed their first trademark application for Avon on June 3, 1932 with the USPTO. McConnell called it Avon because he had visited Stratford-on-Avon and loved the countryside there.

In 1976 certain ingredients were banned from use by the cosmetics industry because of endangered species legislation that was passed as part of a growing environmental movement.

Of the estimated 1,000 cosmetic companies in 1990, 31 percent of sales were made by the top three--Avon, Revlon, and Estee Lauder.

The average woman puts 168 chemicals on her body every day through the use of make-up and other beauty products.

Europe has banned more than half the cosmetics Americans use on a daily basis due to health risks.

Sources Encyclopedia Britannica, Daily Express, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc, The Book of Spices by Frederic Rosengarten

Chanel No. 5

Coco Chanel commissioned Russian-born French perfumer Ernest Beaux to make some perfumes. When presented with small glass vials containing sample scent compositions numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24 for her assessment, it was bottle No.5 that was to Chanel's liking and became the chosen formula.

Chanel reportedly told Beaux: “I present my dress collections on May 5, the fifth month of the year, and so we will let this sample number five keep the name. It will bring good luck.”

Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume ever to be named after its designer.

Chanel introduced the new perfume to some of her friends on the fifth day of the fifth month (May) in 1921. Initially, it was given to good clients for free at her boutique. The fitting rooms in Chanel's boutique were  scented with No. 5 to create an ambiance unmatched by her contemporaries.

At the time of its inception, the most expensive perfume oil was jasmine due to the expensive distilling process (which still holds true today). Chanel wanted to create the most expensive perfume in the world, and as such No. 5 relies heavily on jasmine.

The bottle, over decades, has itself become an identifiable cultural artifact, so much so that Andy Warhol chose to commemorate its iconic status in the mid-1980s with his pop-art, silk-screen titled “Ads: Chanel.

In late 2004, Buz Luhrmann directed the world's most expensive advertisement for Chanel No 5, a 4-minute short film titled No 5: The Film starring Nicole Kidman and Rodrigo Santoro. The film ad, about a fairy-tale romance in which Chanel is part of the story but is not what the story is about, had a budget of $42 million and made Kidman a Guinness World Record holder for highest paid actress in a commercial (she was paid $12 million for her role). Varying length versions of the film ad were shown on television, and - a first for Chanel - in movie theaters.

According to Chanel, the formula used to produce No. 5 has changed little since its creation, except for the necessary exclusion of natural civet and certain nitro-musks.

Chanel claims that every 30 seconds, somewhere in the world, a bottle of Chanel No 5 is sold.

Beauty

A Quick Beauty Timeline:

1000 The Middle Ages saw the rise of a more complex view of female beauty in Western Europe. Purity was the order of the day.
1530 A slender ankle, small breasts and a pale face are in.
1605 The Stuarts go for big-haired beauty.
1670 Dark ringlets and plenty of padding come with the Restoration.
1700 Women are at least size 16, the fuller figure is fashionable, girth being a sign of wealth.
1730 A powdered wig and a face to match is in.
1851 A wasp waist and well-shaped nose is in.
1925 The film industry has become the greatest single source for the employment of beautiful people.
Boyish good looks with short hair and no waist is in.

The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato taught that the essence of human beauty lies in the belief that all things beautiful can be divided into thirds. A brow one third of way from hairline, a mouth one third of the way from the brow and a point of chin one third of the way from the mouth.

The Roman goddess Venus was the classical personification of beauty. Her Greek equivalent was Aphrodite. Below is Venus rising from the sea, from the Casa della Venere in conchiglia, Pompeii. Before AD 79

In ancient Japan, small eyes, a round puffy face, and plump body were considered attractive features of women.

A famous musician and singer from Baghdad, known as Blackbird, opened the world’s first beauty institute in southern Spain in 840AD. Here, students learned the secrets of hair removal, as well as how to apply cosmetics, manufacture deodorants, use toothpowder, and the basics of hairdressing.

In Europe in the early Middle Ages, married women were expected to conceal their hair in order not to stimulate the sexual desires of men. Only virgins were permitted to wear their hair loose.

The Renaissance period gave rise to a new obsession: the breast. The nude breast increasingly began to appear in Renaissance art, often set in the context of religious or maternal images.

The Tudors preferred small-breasted women. Fashion reflected this, with stiffened bodices to flatten the chests of even the most well endowed.

Paleness of skin was symbolic of a woman’s inner purity in the Middle Ages. Rosy cheeks were a sign of sin and lust, as well as of common birth. Everyone strove for that instant sign of aristocracy--the pale complexion--even though the white lead that many used corroded skin and caused hair to fall out.

A female’s forehead was considered their most beautiful feature in the Middle Ages. Women would often remove all of their eyelashes and their eyebrows to highlight this part of their face. 

 Portrait of a young girl painted by Petrus Christus in 1470.] Via ParkPlace

At the French court in the sixteenth century, men and women competed with each other in excesses of personal adornment. They wore powders, perfumes, wigs, laces, jewelry, corsets, ruffles, and beauty marks that originally were black patches to cover blemishes, including scars and pits left by disease. Ointments of oils and almond paste were used to whiten skin, as were clay, chalk, and zinc.

Powders of orris (the rootstock of a European iris), flour, and cornstarch became so popular for faces and wigs in sixteenth century France for the aristocracy that they caused a shortage of grain for hungry peasants.

The Restoration period gave rise to a new trend in beauty that was to prevail throughout the following century-the wig. Increasingly elaborate, these wigs were worn by the aristocracy to demonstrate how wealthy they were.

In the 1700s, European women achieved a pale complexion by eating "Arsenic Complexion Wafers" actually made with the poison.

Physical attractiveness has a significant influence on judges sentencing. The more unattractive the criminal, the higher the sentence. Results of three studies show a minimum increase of 119.25% and a maximum increase of 304.88%.

Americans spend more than $5 billion a year on cosmetics, toiletries, beauty parlors and barber shops.

The San Blas Indian women of Panama consider giant noses a mark of great beauty.

Caligynephobia is the fear of beautiful women.

Sources BBC History Magazine, TheTempest, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc

Avon

The California Perfume Company, the forerunner of Avon. was founded in 1886 by David H McConnell, an American, who spent his school vacations selling Bibles. He realized that the small samples of rose oil perfume, which he gave out with God's Word, were received with greater enthusiasm than the Bibles themselves.

McConnell realized that women would rather buy from women, so he set about building up a team of housewives selling to friends and relatives.

The California Perfume Company, Inc. of New York filed their first trademark application for Avon on June 3, 1932 with the USPTO. The change of the name of the business to Avon came after McConnell was impressed by a visit to Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon in England.

The UK branch was launched in the 1950s and became famous for its 'Ding-dong, Avon calling' advertising campaign.

In 1989, Avon became the first major cosmetics manufacturer to permanently stop using animals in safety testing.

Avon started off selling cosmetics but now also offers fragrance, jewellery, clothes and home accessories.

An Avon training center in the Bronx

With 6.4 million representatives, operating in over 100 countries, Avon is the second largest direct-selling enterprise in the world (after Amway).

Brazil is Avon's largest market, passing the United States in 2010. 

The company launched a new marketing campaign in September 2020, entitled "Watch Me Now"

Someone buys an Avon lipstick every three seconds.

Source Daily Mail

Elizabeth Arden

Elizabeth Arden was born in Canada on December 31, 1881 where her parents had emigrated from Cornwall in South West England.

Elizabeth Arden / photo by Alan Fisher.

She joined her brother in Manhattan where she worked for the E.R. Squibb Pharmaceuticals Company as a bookkeeper. While there, Arden spent hours in their lab, learning about skincare.

Her real name was Florence Nightingale Graham. She adopted the personal and business name of ‘Elizabeth Arden’ after opening her first beauty salon on Fifth Avenue in 1910.

Arden painted her first beauty salon red in order to stand out from the gray ones that were the standard at the time.

Elizabeth Arden married Thomas Lewis on November 29, 1915, at age 33, and automatically became an American citizen. Lewis was an advertising man who managed Arden's wholesale operation and together they expanded the business greatly, but constant work led to their divorce.

With her rival Helena Rubinstein, Arden made make-up acceptable to "respectable" American women, to whom Arden introduced eye shadow, mascara, and lipstick tinted to match their outfits.

By 1929 she owned 150 upscale salons across the United States and Europe. She was the sole owner, and at the peak of her career, Arden was one of the wealthiest women in the world.

Convinced that pink was the most flattering color, she made it her trademark whether it be clothes, diamond rings or lipstick.

She was the first to sell travel-size beauty products and to incorporate a founder’s name into a product name.

Arden hated spectacles so much she wouldn’t employ anyone who wore them.

Elizabeth Arden operated Maine Chance Stables in Kentucky, where the 1947 Kentucky Derby winner was bred.

Arden died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan on October 18, 1966 aged 84; she was interred in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, under the name Elizabeth N. Graham.