1. RESEARCH & IDEAS
The History of Beauty
Q&A with: Geoffrey G. Jones
Published: April 19, 2010
Author: Sean Silverthorne
Fragrance, eyeliner, toothpaste—the beauty As I researched this story, I realized both manufacturers and perfumers that will provide a
business has permeated our lives like few other the huge size and the importance of this product for you.
industries. But surprisingly little is known about industry—and the remarkable paucity of This is also an industry subject to sudden
its history, which over time has been shrouded authoritative literature about it. Or more shifts in fashion and fads, which disrupt
in competitive secrecy. HBS history professor precisely, while there are numerous books on incumbent positions and provide opportunities
Geoffrey Jones offers one of the first various aspects of the beauty industry, from for new entrants. Brand loyalties are often
authoritative accounts in Beauty Imagined: A glossy coffee-table publications on cherished weak, especially for "fun" products like lip and
History of the Global Beauty Industry. Key brands of perfume to feminist denunciations of eye cosmetics, although less so for foundation,
concepts include: the industry as demeaning to women, there because it is more expensive and needs to be a
• The emergence of the beauty industry was were few studies that treated beauty seriously, good match with skin tone.
associated with an unprecedented as a business. So I saw both a challenge and an Achieving sustainable success in the beauty
homogenization of beauty ideals throughout opportunity to research the story of how this industry is another matter. It is fiercely
the world. industry grew from modest origins, making competitive, with thousands of product
• Entrepreneurs combined a passion for the products that were often deemed an affront to launches each year. Even the largest, most
beauty industry with an ability to public morality, to the $330 billion global professionally managed global companies find
understand the societal values and artistic industry of today. it hard to predict the success of product
trends of their eras. launches, and can stumble badly. One estimate
• The industry is subject to sudden shifts in Q: Why has this industry been so is that 90 percent of new fragrance launches
fashion and fads, which disrupt incumbent neglected by business school faculty? fail. Getting the word out to consumers, and
positions and provide opportunities for new A: I think there are two reasons. First of all, getting product through the distribution
entrants. this is a difficult industry to research. channels to consumers, provide further major
Historically, it has been quite fragmented, with challenges for new ventures. Creative talent,
many small and often family-owned firms astute marketing skills, and the ability to
Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global whose stories are hard to reconstruct. The understand and respond rapidly to consumer
Beauty Industry is the first serious attempt to industry as a whole is well known to be fashions and preferences are all needed to
trace the history of the $330 billion global secretive—after all, its foundations rest heavily succeed. There are fortunes to be made by
beauty industry and its large collection of on mystique. building a successful new brand, but it takes an
fascinating entrepreneurs through countries And then there is the frequently observed enormous amount of work and good luck to
including France, the United States, Japan, and gender bias in business school faculty. I suspect succeed.
Brazil. What's taken so long? male faculty, who comprised the majority in
According to author Geoffrey Jones, the most schools until quite recently, regarded this Q: You artfully portray a vivid,
Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at industry as a feminine domain and rather passionate cast of entrepreneurs. Which do
HBS, the fragmented, secretive, often frivolous, and felt more comfortable writing you consider the most influential? Do you
family-owned businesses that have constituted about software or venture capital than lipstick have favorites?
the industry have been difficult for scholars to and face powder. As female faculty built A: The book emphasizes the role of
unlock. Couple this with the fact that most careers in business schools, they may also have individual entrepreneurs in building this
business historians are male, and you have a been disinclined to conform to assumed gender industry. They varied enormously in their
major industry that still has lots to reveal. We stereotypes by working on beauty. The fashion backgrounds and characters, but most shared a
asked Jones to discuss his research and his new industry, which is also huge, suffers from the passion for the beauty industry, combined with
book. same lack of attention from management an ability to understand the societal values and
researchers. artistic trends of their eras, and to translate them
Sean Silverthorne: What inspired your into brands.
interest in the beauty business and its Q: You write, "Beauty emerges as an François Coty stands out as a creative
history? industry which was easy to enter, but hard to genius in the formative stages of the industry in
Geoffrey Jones: My initial interest in the succeed at." How so? the early 20th century. Born as Joseph Marie
beauty industry was triggered by my earlier A: It does not take a great deal of capital François Spoturno on the Mediterranean island
history of the consumer products giant nor technological expertise to launch an of Corsica, which was also the birthplace of
Unilever, published some years ago. This entrepreneurial venture in many beauty Napoleon, he was a complete outsider to the
company had a long-established business in products—although for such a venture to have traditional Parisian perfume industry. He went
soap and other toiletries, but spent decades after any hope of success, high levels of imagination on to transform it. Assuming an adapted version
World War II striving without great success to and creativity have always been required. If you of his mother's maiden name as he strove to
expand its business into other categories of the have a concept for a new brand, and the create a brand that symbolized style and
beauty industry, such as skin care and perfume. necessary finance, there are contract elegance, he got his first order by smashing a
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2. HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL | WORKING KNOWLEDGE | HBSWK.HBS.EDU
bottle of his perfume on the floor of a 30s, shows that a large company has the power scents. A hundred years later, the application of
prominent Parisian department store, in a to challenge stereotypes should it wish to do so. new technologies to extract essences from
successful gambit to get customers to smell it. flowers and plants, and to create synthetic
He created two entirely new classes of perfume, Q: What was the impact of television fragrances, had transformed perfume.
soft sweet floral and chypre, and was the first both in helping define beauty and in Historically, perfumes were reminiscent of one
perfumer to sell his wares in elegantly designed developing the industry? individual "note"—to employ the musical
glass bottles, rather than in the pharmaceutical A: During the late 1940s, television spread metaphor used in the industry—which tried to
bottles used previously. An ambitious believer rapidly across the United States, and soon replicate nature. The new perfumes had a vastly
in globalization, he even sent his energetic afterwards elsewhere. Television offered increased range of scents; were far more
mother-in-law to open up the American market remarkable new opportunities to take brands abstract, with three notes; and offered scents not
in 1905. The American business proved so into people's living rooms, and it drove found in nature. Meanwhile, a marketing
successful that its U.S. sales reached the advertising budgets sharply upwards. revolution had turned perfume into a branded
equivalent in today's terms of half a billion Charles Revson was a master of using the product, sold at different price points in
dollars by the end of the 1920s, before the Great new medium to grow brands. Revlon's fortunes different distribution channels, and increasingly
Depression eviscerated what had become the were made through its sponsorship of The gendered. While historically men and women
world's biggest beauty company. $64,000 Question game show that began had used the same scents, they now began to
Coty was a larger than life character, but he broadcasting on CBS in 1955. Later it emerged like to smell differently, with scents now
was hardly alone in this industry in that respect. that the show was rigged, a scandal that even reminding genders of their roles in the world.
The cast of influential and colorful characters led to congressional hearings, but this had no As for decorative cosmetics, the story of
includes Madam C.J. Walker, the daughter of discernible impact on either Revson or his lipstick is really interesting. While the use of
former slaves in Louisiana who developed a company. lipstick, like many cosmetics products, reaches
system for straightening African-American hair, Television also proved a medium that new back far into human history, in the early 20th
which was so successful that she ranks as entrants could use to challenge incumbents. century it was still a product associated with
among the first American self-made female During the late 1950s, Leonard Lavin used actresses and women of dubious morality.
millionaires. And then there was the television advertising to grow the tiny Thereafter the use and acceptability of lipstick
ever-feuding Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Alberto-Culver hair care business into a expanded. There was technological
Arden, who transformed beauty salons from significant national player. innovation—the first metal lipstick container
places considered the moral equivalent of More recently, home shopping channels was invented in Connecticut in 1915, and the
brothels to palaces of opulence and style. And such as HSN and QVC have become important first screw-up lipstick appeared six years later.
in our own time, Luiz Seabra stands out as the places to launch new brands. However, the By the time the United States entered World
founder of Brazil's biggest beauty company, impact of television was not limited to War II in 1941, the government declared the
Natura, which is dedicated to environmental marketing. Color television drove innovation in production of lipstick to be a wartime necessity,
sustainability with a broad social vision. makeup, which was subsequently diffused from such was its impact on morale.
actors to the wider public. And as the United
Q: How much does the industry influence States became a major source of television Q: What does this book tell us about the
our notions of beauty, and how much do programming worldwide, it proved a major impact of globalization today and going
accepted or popular notions of beauty force for diffusing American ideals of lifestyle, forward?
influence product development? fashion, and beauty worldwide. A: As I have suggested, the emergence of
A: The human desire to attract reflects basic the modern industry was associated with an
biological motivations. Every human society Q: What do you think were the most unprecedented homogenization of beauty ideals
from at least the ancient Egyptians onwards has significant products that marked its throughout the world. During much of the 20th
used beauty products and artifacts to enhance evolution? century, homogenization was further reinforced
attractiveness. However, beauty ideals have A: I would begin with soap. The technology by the impact of Hollywood, the advent of
always varied enormously over time and to make soap was known for several thousand international beauty pageants, and so on.
between societies. years, but the product was rarely used for Beauty was associated with Caucasian features,
The book shows that as the modern industry personal washing, especially by Europeans who as interpreted by the twin capitals of beauty,
emerged in the 19th century, it facilitated a largely avoided washing with water after the Paris and New York. Although the momentum
worldwide homogenization of beauty ideals. Black Death in the Middle Ages, believing it to for homogenization was strong, it was striking
Beauty became associated with Western be dangerous. Then, as public health concerns that markets stayed differentiated by inherited
countries, and white people, and with women. rose during the 19th century and water began to cultural and social preferences.
These assumptions reflected wider societal be piped into people's houses, a number of And globalization today is working in a far
trends. Western societies as a whole underwent brilliant entrepreneurs built a demand for soap more complex fashion. The geographical spread
growing gender differences in clothing and as a branded product by linking its use to of megabrands and globalization of celebrity
work. And this was the age of Western godliness, securing celebrity endorsement, and culture certainly suggests further
imperialism. The industry's contribution was to later suggesting that the use of some brands homogenization. During the early 1980s,
turn these underlying trends into brands, create would bring romantic success. Using soap for China's consumption of beauty products was
aspirations that drove their growing use, and washing became associated with Western close to zero. It is now the world's
then employ modern marketing methods to civilization, and even as an essential entry ticket fourth-largest beauty market-and the top brands
globalize them. for immigrants seeking to become true in cosmetics and skin care are the same as in the
I see beauty companies as interpreters of Americans. United States.
prevailing assumptions and as reinforcers of The transformation of perfume also marks However, there was also a new sensitivity to
them. The debate is how much autonomy an important stage in the evolution of the difference and diversity, representing a new
beauty companies have to shape ideals. modern beauty industry. In the early 19th pride and interest in ethnic and local beauty
Unilever's current Dove marketing campaign, century, perfume was made in small batches, ideals. The tremendous growth of skin
which uses senior women as models to make rarely applied to the skin, and drunk for health lighteners in India and East Asia is one sign of
the point that one can be beautiful beyond one's reasons. There was a narrow range of available this trend. While global companies are
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concerned that the core claims—and usually the manufactured for everyday use.20 As usual,
core technologies of brands—have to be the Q: What are you working on now? early adopters were young. In 1925 the concept
same worldwide, there is now also a concern A: I am writing a book on the origins and of a "generation gap" was invented to describe
that the forms in which such claims were growth of green entrepreneurship worldwide the difference between mothers and daughters
delivered, whether in jars or creams, should be over the last six decades. This idea originated regarding the use of lipstick in America.21 By
relevant to local consumers in each market. out of my research on the beauty industry, in the end of the 1920s, three thousand different
Moreover, as global firms experiment with which I explored the growth of interest in face powders and several hundred rouges alone
taking new beauty ideals around the world, they "natural" products. This is now one of the were being sold on the American market.22
are becoming agents of diffusion for different hottest segments of the global industry, with Hollywood was also playing a pivotal role.
beauty ideals. L'Oréal, for example, primarily estimated sales of $7 billion. During World War I the American industry was
sold French brands before the 1990s. During In recent years, natural products companies able to pull ahead of the French firms which
that decade it purchased American brands such like The Body Shop and Bare Escentuals, the initially dominated the cinema industry. By the
as Maybelline, Redken, and Kiehl's and San Francisco company that has built the 1920s the industry, now concentrated in
globalized them. And over the last decade it has minerals-based cosmetic market, have been Southern California, was able to benefit from
acquired Shu Uemura in Japan, Yue-Sai in snapped up by global players paying large the size of its home market and its control of
China, and Britain's Body Shop. Global firms premiums. However, what really interested me distribution markets to dominate both the
are, in this sense, now orchestrating diversity, is the time it took to make this market take off. American and international markets.23 Movie
not homogeneity. As early as the 1950s, entrepreneurs like theaters reached almost every American town,
Jacques Courtin-Clarins and Yves Rocher diffusing new lifestyles and creating a new
Q: Both men and women played huge began to experiment making cosmetics from celebrity culture around movie stars that
entrepreneurial roles in the development of plants rather than chemicals, decades ahead of exercised a powerful influence on how beauty,
the industry. Was one gender better than the perceived demand. They, and their counterparts especially female beauty, was defined.24
other, generally, in creating success? in other industries such as food and cleaning Max Factor forged the direct link between
A: It is tempting to speculate that since so materials who talked about the dangers of cosmetics and Hollywood. His work for actors
many of the products in the industry have been chemical ingredients and the need for resulted in the principle of "Color Harmony,"
and continue to be aimed at women, being a environmental sustainability, were often which established for the first time that certain
female entrepreneur would make one better at dismissed as crazy, or at best irrelevant. Today, combinations of a woman's complexion, hair,
interpreting women's desires than a male many of their ideas are mainstream. and eye coloring were most effectively
entrepreneur. The industry has indeed seen a This transition is the core of the book I am complemented by specific make-up shades. As
veritable roll call of influential female now researching. It will look at entrepreneurs he grew in fame alongside the movies, he also
entrepreneurs. Over the last five decades alone, and firms across a broad span of industries, and played a significant role in legitimatizing the
one can think of Estée Lauder and Mary Kay in globally, that saw greenness as both a profitable use of cosmetics. In particular, he began
the United States; Simone Tata, who virtually and a socially necessary business opportunity, referring to his cosmetics as make-up, a word
founded the modern Indian beauty industry; and and that have led, rather than followed, long used by actors but not widely used more
Britain's Anita Roddick, the founder of The regulators and public opinion in pursuit of their generally because of the disreputable image of
Body Shop. Among influential female business goals. actors.25 Now, for perhaps the first time in
leaders today are Avon's Andrea Jung and Western culture, actors could be thought not
Leslie Blodgett of Bare Escentuals.
Yet for every successful female business
Excerpt from Beauty just beautiful on the outside but beautiful and
respectable on the inside, too. That was a big
leader, one can find male equivalents, including Imagined: A History of the change for people until recently regarded as
the misogynist Charles Revson who built Global Beauty Business barely above prostitutes.
Revlon as an industry leader between the 1950s By Geoffrey Jones Max Factor's store in Los Angeles also
and 1970s; the British-born Lindsay began to make wider sales. In 1916 he
Owen-Jones, who turned the French hair care Beauty amid introduced Eye Shadow and Eyebrow Pencil for
company L'Oréal into today's global beauty War and public sale, the first time such products had
powerhouse over the last two decades; and Shu Depression: The been available beyond the theatrical make-up
Uemura, the Japanese makeup artist who American color line. Advertisements prominently featured
created an exquisite, and now global, brand. cosmetics market screen stars, whose studios required them to
A further complication in reaching a also expanded endorse Max Factor products.26 A distribution
definitive answer to whether there are gender during these years. company was contracted to penetrate the
advantages in this industry is that women are Still barely drugstore market, and in 1927 nationwide
more likely to enter the beauty business than acceptable in 1914, distribution of Max Factor cosmetics began.
others, as the obstacles to entry for female product innovations The date coincided with the premiere of the first
entrepreneurs have been and continue to be made their use both talking movie The Jazz Singer, at which Max
higher for women than men in other industries, more accessible and Factor and his family were in attendance. 27
like construction, for example. So there is a lot desirable. The first
of female entrepreneurial talent pooling up in metal lipstick container was invented by
beauty, while male entrepreneurial talent is Maurice Levy in Connecticut in 1915. The first
spread more evenly across industries. screw-up lipstick appeared six years later.19 In
Footnotes
The book's position on this question is that 1916 Northam Warren created the first 19. Jessica Pallingston, Lipstick: A
gender is not a main determinant of success in commercial liquid nail polish when he launched Celebration of the World's Favorite Cosmetic
this industry, but that status as an "outsider" of the Cutex brand of manicure preparations. A (New York: St. Martin's Press), p. 70.
some kind was important. This helps to explain new form of mascara was invented by an 20. http://www.maybelline.co.uk/about_us,
why so many successful figures in the past were Illinois chemist T. L. Williams, whose accessed April 15, 2007.
immigrants, or Jews, or—indeed—female. Maybelline Cake Mascara, launched in 1917, 21. Pallingston, Lipstick, p. 164.
became the first modern eye cosmetic to be 22. Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar (New York:
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4. HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL | WORKING KNOWLEDGE | HBSWK.HBS.EDU
Henry Holt, 1998), pp 121-2. 25. Fred E. Basten, Max Factor: The Man
23. Gerben Bakker, Entertainment who Changed the Faces of the World (New
Industrialised: The Emergence of the York: Arcade, 2008), p. 46.
About the author
International Film Industry, 1890-1940 26. Peiss, Hope, p. 126. Sean Silverthorne is editor-in-chief of HBS
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 27. Basten, Max Factor, pp. 59-61. Working Knowledge.
2008). Excerpt reprinted with permission of
24. Lois Banner, American Beauty Geoffrey Jones, Beauty Imagined: A History of
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p the Global Beauty Industry, 2010. Copyright ©
16. 2010 by Geoffrey Jones. All rights reserved.
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