HELENA RUBINSTEIN

                                                                 HELENA RUBINSTEIN
                                                                          1872 - 1965
                                                        https://www.helenarubinstein.com/int/

American business woman. 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 enterprises in the fields of education, art and health. (All information is from Wikipedia.)
Helena Rubinstein (Born Chaja Rubinstein December 25th 1872 - April 1st 1965) was a Polish American business woman, art collector and philanthropist. A cosmetics entrepreneur, and was the founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein Incorporated Cosmetics Company, which made her one of the world's richest women.

Rubinstein was the eldest of eight daughters born to Polish Jews. Her father was a shop keeper in the city of Krakow. At 4ft 10in, Rubinstein emigrated to Australia in 1902, with no money and little English. Her stylish clothes and milky complexion did not go unnoticed among the town's ladies, 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. Fortunately a key ingredient of the cream, lanolin, was readily at hand. To disguise the lanolin's pungent odour, Rubinstein experimented with lavender, pine bark and water lilies.
After moving and working as a waitress at the Winter Garden tearooms in Melbourne, she found an admirer willing to stump up the funds to launch her Creme Valaze, supposedly including herbs "from the Carpathian mountains." Costing ten pence and selling for six shillings, it walked off the shelves as fast as Rubinstein could pack it into pots. Known to her customers as only Helena, Rubinstein could soon afford to open a salon in fashionable Collins Street, selling glamour as a science to clients 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 Beaute Valaze in London. As such, Rubinstein formed one of the world's first cosmetic companies. Her business enterprise proved immensely successful. Rubinstein rapidly expanded her enterprise. In 1908, her sister Ceska assumed the Melbourne shop's operation, when, 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.)

In 1908, Rubinstein married Edward William Titus in London. They had two sons, Roy and Horace. Eventually moving to Paris, she opened a salon in 1912. At the outbreak of World War 1, she and Titus moved to New York City, where she opened a cosmetics salon in 1915, the forerunner of a chain throughout the country.
From 1917, Rubinstein took on the manufacturing and wholesale distribution of her products. The "Day of Beauty" in the various salons became a great success. In 1928, she sold the American business for $7.3 million. After the arrival of the Great Depression, Rubinstein bought the nearly worthless stock for less than $1 million and eventually turned the shares into values of multi million dollars, establishing salons and outlets in almost a dozen U.S. cities. Her spa at 715 Fifth Avenue included a restaurant, gymnasium and rugs. She even commissioned Salvador Dali to design a powder compact.
In 1938, Helena remarried to Prince Artchil Gourielli-Tchkonia who died in 1955.

Rubinstein took a bag lunch into work and was very frugal in many ways, even though she was a multimillionaire. She did, however, buy top-fashion clothes and valuable fine art and furniture. Making good use of her wealth, Helena established many foundations and scholarships, as well as providing funds to organizations specializing  in health, medical research and rehabilitation. In 1959, Rubinstein represented the U.S. cosmetics industry at the American National Exhibition in Moscow.
Helena Rubinstein died April 1st 1965, from natural causes.

                         One of her sayings was :"There are no ugly women, only lazy ones."
https://www.helenarubinstein.com/int/