Helena Rubinstein — BrandWiki

Helena Rubinstein

Overview

Helena Rubinstein

birth name	Chaja Rubinstein
birth date	December 25, 1872
birth place	Kraków, Austria-Hungary (now Poland)
death date	April 1, 1965
death place	New York City, US
other names	Princess Gourielli, Madame Helena Rubinstein, Chaja Rubinstein
known for	Founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein Incorporated cosmetics company
occupation	Businesswoman · philanthropist · art collector · cosmetician
spouse	Edward William Titus (m. 1908-1938) Prince Artchil Gourielli-Tchkonia (m. 1938-1955)

Helena Rubinstein (born Chaja Rubinstein; December 25, 1872 – April 1, 1965)[1] was a Polish-American businesswoman, art collector, and philanthropist. A cosmetics entrepreneur, she was the founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein Incorporated cosmetics company, which made her one of the world's richest women.[2]

Early life

Rubinstein was the eldest of eight daughters[3] born to Polish Jews, "Augusta" Gitte (Gitel) Shaindel Rubinstein née Silberfeld and Naftoli Hertz "Horace" Rubinstein. Her father was a shopkeeper in Kraków, Lesser Poland, which was then occupied by Austria-Hungary following the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. The existentialist philosopher Martin Buber was her cousin. She was also the cousin of Ruth Rappaport's mother.[4]

Move to Australia

After refusing an arranged marriage, Rubinstein emigrated from Poland to Australia in 1896, with no money and little command of the English language.[5] Her stylish clothes and milky complexion did not pass unnoticed among the town's ladies, however, and she soon found enthusiastic buyers for the jars of beauty cream in her luggage. She spotted a market where she began to make her own. A key ingredient of the cream, lanolin, was readily at hand.

Coleraine, in the Western Victoria region, where her uncle was a shopkeeper, might have been an "awful place" but was home to some 75 million sheep that secreted abundant quantities of lanolin. These sheep were the wealth of the nation and the Western District's vast mobs of merinos produced the finest wool in the land. To disguise the lanolin's pungent odour, Rubinstein experimented with lavender, pine bark, and water lilies.

Rubinstein had a falling out with her uncle, but after a stint as a bush governess began waitressing at the Winter Garden tearooms in Melbourne. There, she found an admirer willing to stump up the funds to launch her Crème Valaze, supposedly including herbs imported "from the Carpathian Mountains". It cost ten pence and sold for six shillings (72 pence). Known to her customers only as Helena, Rubinstein could soon afford to open a salon in fashionable Collins Street, selling glamour as a science to customers whose skin was "diagnosed" and a suitable treatment "prescribed".

Sydney was next, and within five years, Australian operations were profitable enough to finance a Salon de Beauté Valaze in London. As such, Rubinstein formed one of the world's first cosmetic companies. Her business enterprise proved immensely successful and later in life, she used her enormous wealth to support charitable institutions in the fields of education, art, and health.

Rubinstein rapidly expanded her operation. In 1908, her sister Ceska assumed the Melbourne shop's operation, and with $100,000, Rubinstein moved to London and began what was to become an international enterprise. (Women at this time could not obtain bank loans, so the money was her own.)

Death and legacy

Rubinstein died April 1, 1965, of natural causes and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Queens.[20] Some of her estate, including African and fine art, Lucite furniture, and Victorian furniture upholstered in purple, was auctioned in 1966 at the Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York City.

One of Rubinstein's numerous sayings was: "There are no ugly women, only lazy ones."[21] A scholarly study of her exclusive beauty salons and how they blurred and influenced the conceptual boundaries at the time among fashion, art galleries, the domestic interior and versions of modernism is explored by Marie J. Clifford.[22] A feature-length documentary film, The Powder & the Glory (2009) by Ann Carol Grossman and Arnie Reisman, details the rivalry between Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden.[8]

In her book Ugly Beauty, Ruth Brandon described her methodology:

"She knew how to advertise—using 'fear copy with a bit of blah-blah'— and introduced the concept of 'problem' skin types. She also pioneered the use of pseudo-science in marketing, donning a lab coat in many advertisements, despite the fact that her only training had been a two-month tour of European skin-care facilities. She knew how to manipulate consumers' status anxiety, as well: If a product faltered initially, she would hike the price to raise the perceived value.[23]"

In 1973, the company Helena Rubinstein, Inc. was sold to Colgate-Palmolive. By the 1980s the brand had faded from the US market.[24] In 1984 it was acquired by L'Oréal.[25][26] The L'Oreal takeover was to cause a good deal of scandal as company founder, Eugène Schueller, had been an enthusiastic collaborator during the war, and in its aftermath, L'Oreal became notorious for employing ex-Nazis on the run. Jacques Corrèze, who engineered the takeover, was one of these: he had been active in expropriating Jewish property in Paris. The brand was re-launched in the US market in 1999 but it was unprofitable despite its having a renaissance in Asia, Europe, and South America. The US operation was closed down in 2003.[27] Since 2011, L'Oréal has been repositioning the brand as an ultra-premium skin care franchise. As of 2023, high-end Helena Rubinstein products remain unavailable in the US but are sold in international markets.

The L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards are also known as the Helena Rubinstein Women in Science Awards.

The Helena Rubinstein Foundation, which had been established in 1953, operated through 2011, ultimately distributing nearly $130 million over the course of six decades, primarily to education, arts, and community-based organizations in New York City.[28] The foundation was a longtime supporter of children's programming for New York City's PBS affiliate WNET.

The Manhattan Jewish Museum hosted the exhibition "Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power", the first museum show devoted to Rubinstein, from October 31, 2014, until March 22, 2015.[29][30]