ELIZABETH ARDEN Perfume

ELIZABETH ARDEN Elizabeth Arden was born Florence Nightingale Graham in Ontario, Canada in 1878. Originally trained as a nurse, Arden imagined burn creams and salves as having the potential to be beauty creams and lotions, rather than just medicines. She experimented with various ingredients in her kitchen at home, searching for the perfect beauty cream. In 1907, she moved to New York, joining her brother, where she worked as a bookkeeper for a Pharmaceutical company. After learning extensively about skincare in their lab, she went on to work for beauty culturist Eleanor Adair as a “treatment girl.” In 1909 Arden formed a brief partnership with another culturist, Elizabeth Hubbard, and when that partnership dissolved, she coined the name Elizabeth Arden, a mixture of her former associate and Tennyson’s poem “Enoch Arden”. It was at this point, in 1910 that Arden opened her own beauty “salon”, rejecting the more usual word “parlour” as too “homey” and outdated. This Fifth Avenue salon, stood out from other stores with its bright red door, and soon word of her treatments brought socially elite ladies flocking through its doors.

In 1912, Arden visited Paris, to learn beauty and facial massage techniques. Here she noticed that women of fashion wore eyeliners, rouge and lacquers, inspiring her to introduce colour cosmetics to her New York clientele. Along with her rival Helena Rubenstein, Arden was responsible for making colour make-up suitable for not only women of the stage, but as a fashion staple. Due to the demand she had created, she soon outgrew a single location salon, and made her cosmetics available for resale, but only in the most exclusive and prestigious retail outlets worldwide. She was the first in the industry to send out “beauty Ambassador-esses”, the forerunner to beauty advisers found in salons and department stores today and is credited for inventing the “make-over”.

In 1918 she married Thomas Lewis gaining American citizenship. Lewis became her business manager, however he was not permitted to own any stock, and is alleged to have told him, “Dear, never forget one little point: It’s my business. You just work here.” After their divorce in 1935, he went to work for rival Helena Rubenstein. Arden did marry again, in 1942, but this marriage to Prince Michael Evlanoff lasted only 13 months and they too divorced in 1944. In 1922, she opened her first salon in France, thus moving into the European market.

In 1934 Arden converted her holiday home in Maine to the Maine Chance beauty Spa, and went on to expand both nationally and internationally. This was one of the most prestigious spas in the States, frequented by both movie stars and royalty. In 1935, she launched her first fragrance, Blue Grass, a sweet floral perfume combining scents of sandalwood, jasmine, carnation, musk, lavender, narcissus, neroli and bergamot. In the same year she created her soothing Eight Hour Cream lotion. In 1939, Arden became the first to make a cosmetics advertisement shown in picture/ movie houses. Later she tied in the Elizabeth Arden to Beauty through the luxury of owning a deluxe automobile. Each car was a designer edition, equipped with a case of Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and treatments. Indeed, it is commonly said that by the 1930’s, only 3 American names were known in every corner of the globe- Singer Sewing Machines, Coca cola and Elizabeth Arden.

When World War II broke out, Arden recognised the changing needs of American women in as they entered the workforce, many for the first time. In support of females in the armed forces she created a lipstick to match their uniforms, called Montezuma Red as well as finding acceptable ways of applying make-up for careers outside the home. Her commitment to excellence meant that her products were never introduced until she was satisfied that they met her perfectionist high standards, from ingredients through to packaging. 1945 saw the introduction of couture clothing to her salon. The first collection, designed by Charles James preceded collections by fashion moguls Antonio Castillo, Oscar de la Renta and Fernando Sarmi. The following year she appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Elizabeth Arden died in 1966 at the age of 88, still the sole owner of the business. At the time of her death, the company was grossing an estimated $60 million a year, and consisted of 17 different corporations and 40 salons worldwide.

Her cosmetics company continues to thrive today. The current “face” of Elizabeth Arden is Catherine Zeta Jones, and the corporation holds the license to Britney Spears fragrances, Curious, Fantasy, In Control and Midnight Fantasy, as well as Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds, Passion, Forever Elizabeth and Gardenia. Elizabeth Arden invented the American Beauty industry.