Changing faces of beauty The beauty world, one of the only industries dominated and lead by powerful female figures. Women who have invented and shaped the products we all use today
illustrations hazel mason
Madam CJ Walker words frances ambler
“A big black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up in my hair… In a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out… I made up my mind to begin to sell it.” The cosmetics business of Madam CJ Walker began in such a dream, and one she followed with dogged determination. She moved to Denver, with only $1.50 to her name, to set up her business – little did she know then that it would help her become the first female selfmade millionaire in the United States. Working two days a week as a laundress, she spent the rest of her time selling her products door-to-door. Her “wonderful hair grower” and lotions were formulated for black women like her, their needs inadequately addressed by the white beauty industry. She expanded into mail order, a beauty school, parlour and a national network of saleswomen, promoting her “Walker method” for hair. As her wealth grew and grew, Walker lavished it on cars and houses, but also trained her staff in budgeting and financial independence. One agent wrote her thanks in 1913 for helping “hundreds of coloured women to make an honest and profitable living”, where they could “make as much in one week” as in a month in “any other position that a coloured woman can secure”. Donating generously to causes such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Black YMCA, Madam CJ Walker enjoyed her wealth and success but lived for more: “I am in the business world, not for myself alone,” she said in 1912, “but to do all the good I can for the uplift of my race.”
