Changing Faces of Beauty

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.”

Helena Rubinstein

words frances ambler

“Beauty is power” said Helena Rubinstein – and it was for her, taking her from Australia via Poland to London, Paris and New York, conquering all with her products and treatments. She dressed in Schiaparelli, was painted by Salvador Dalí and sketched by Andy Warhol. She had long-running feuds with her rival Charles Revlon and “that woman” Elizabeth Arden. Rubinstein excelled in drama, and introducing that flair into beauty, she was able to conjure up an enticing and hugely profitable realm of luxurious fantasy. She told everyone that the ‘valaze’ beauty moisturising cream on which she established her name contained rare herbs from the Carpathian Mountains – in fact it was a blend of mainly plain old lanolin, wax and cheap scent mixed just down the road in Melbourne. Her beauty speak was peppered with a sprinkling of science – donning a lab coat to talk of “prescribing” beauty remedies, according to her “diagnosis”. Despite all her spin, there’s no doubt Rubinstein was devoted to her business, working into her nineties. She was responsible for a string of innovations: the first waterproof mascara, anti-ageing product, one of the first to market a product against sun damage. She also encouraged women to develop their own personal style at a time when wearing lipstick or nail varnish were still on the cusp of respectability. When it comes to her famous statement that “there are no ugly women, only lazy ones”, it’s less a criticism of our own sloth and more a plea for an inclusive vision of beauty, being voiced by a true individual.

Anita Roddick

words alice snape

Saving up my pocket money to buy lip balms, mascara and gorgeously creamy body butters from The Body Shop is a defining memory from my teenage years, my first brush with cosmetics. I remember even back then – in the ’90s – that The Body Shop were different, they cared about what went into the products and where they came from. And I still use that body butter, one of their most iconic products. And Anita Roddick is the woman behind it all. She launched The Body Shop in 1976. More than just a shrewd business woman, she was a human rights activist and environmental campaigner, she changed the whole face of consumer beauty and its ethics. The company was one of the first to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals and one of the first to promote fair trade with developing countries, which has paved the way, long before it was seen as the norm. An extract from her autobiography/manifesto, Business as Unusual, articulated what The Body Shop set out to do. “There is no more powerful institution in society than business, which is why I believe it is now more important than ever before for business to assume a moral leadership. The business of business should not be about money, it should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed.” Aged 64, she suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2007 and died. A tragic loss for the beauty world, but her memory will certainly live on in natural beauty products that are never, ever tested on animals. �

illustrations hazel mason