Helena Rubinstein: The Woman Who Invented Beauty

Helena Rubinstein invented beauty, understood women and created a revolution. She built a cosmetics empire that spanned the globe. Her creative, professional and scientific approach to beauty coupled with innovative advice on skincare were an instant worldwide sensation. This visionary businesswoman and entrepreneur lived and breathed her own life’s work. Helena Rubinstein was a breathtaking, stunning original. She struggled, nearly gave up, and triumphed. This is her riveting, rags-to-riches life story, a vivid account packed with fascinating detail, the stuff that romantic fiction is made of.

A true heroine at heart, Helena believed in herself and in her extraordinary power to conquer the world. She turned all her disadvantages into strengths. Her character was forged in iron and steel. Driven by great courage, extraordinary intelligence and an indomitable will to succeed, she invented modern cosmetics, making them accessible to all.To Helena, beauty was a new power to assert independence. Her innate sense of marketing helped her to promote her cosmetics empire successfully. She constantly invented new sales techniques to set high professional standards, using creative advertising to her advantage.

Helena worked tirelessly. Work was her best beauty treatment. She believed in the energizing power of hard work. It kept her young, smoothing the wrinkles from her mind and spirit. She became one of the richest women in the world, amassing a fortune almost singlehandedly, by the power of sheer, hard work. She was a visionary and deserved her hard-won success. Madame, as everyone called her, became a billionaire businesswoman and a highly successful entrepreneur. She even acquired a royal title by becoming a princess later in life.

Helena Rubinstein watched the dramatic democratization of beauty, the advent of consumerism and women marching towards freedom and liberty. She lived through many eras, her long and tumultuous life spanning almost a century. She died in 1965 aged 93.

Detailed biography of a very interesting woman. I wasn't sure how the biographer was getting her information though, so it wasn't clear what proportion was conjecture

Worshipful, inspirational and possibly fantastical.

This is a tribute, indeed, to a genuinely amazing person who wrapped the world around her little finger and championed women's rights during the times around the world when women were receiving the right to vote.

There is a feel of the fantastic, and it is clear that the author has written quite lovingly of Helena Rubinstein. Overall a good read.

Helena Rubenstein (born 1872 in Kraków, Poland, died 1965 in New York City) created the cosmetic industry, became a billionaire starting with nothing (inflation adjusted), transformed herself into an Icon perhaps matched in her time only by Coco Chanel. She taught millions of women how to make themselves beautiful. She became a renown supporter of the visual arts, know for her exquisite taste.

She was the eldest of eight daughters from a struggling family in a povertly ridden Jewish Shetl in Kraków, Poland. Fitoussi shows us how much a potential struggle it was for her parents to find suitable husbands and provide the expected dowry for each daughter. )In my post on this wonderful biography I will mostly focus on some of the many things in the book that most struck me and will not set out a sketch of her life.) I will say this is a very good book, it is far more than just a biography but also a portrait of Jewish life, a history of the modern cosmetics industry, and gives us a vivid look at the struggles that Helena Rubenstein as a Jewish woman basically on her own for her formative years faced creating a business empire that still thrives. The roots of her empire were in a cosmetic cream her mother made.

Members of the greater Rubenstein family had emigrated to Australia and Helena decided that was best for her. She did not want to be just another housewife, none of the prospective mates suggested for her were suitable. As I read on in the book, I am more and more impressed by the tremendous work ethic of Helena. When she arrived in Australia, she went to work on an uncle's farm. She worked tremendously hard. She was very beautiful and her family there tried to find a match for Helena among the limited number of single Jewish men in the area. In the mean time Helena noticed the devastating impact of the Australian sun on the skin of women, she had her mother send her some jars of her cream. She began to research cosmetics, wondering how to make a skin cream from local products. She developed a product and with the help of men friends she had acquired, began to market her product. After having a falling out with her uncle she went to work as a waitress in a coffee shop. There she met men who helped her set up a cosmetic shop selling a cream she had created. An important skill she learned in Australia was advertising and promoting her product. Compressing a bit, her shop did very well and soon she had shops throughout Australia. One of the things I liked so much about Helena was her loyalty to her family. Numerous family members ended up working for her. She wanted to go back to Europe for a visit and to expand her empire. By the time she returned to Europe, she had over half a million pound in an Australian bank.

Helena wanted to conquer the French cosmetic world and she succeeded. She began to use her now serious wealth to buy beautiful apartments, collect art and mix in high social levels. She married a man whomgr stay helped her business. They had two sons but Helena was so busy with work that much of the raising of the boys was done by hired servants. The boys had life time issues with their mother but they were very close. Helena kept getting richer and richer and more and more famous.

She had one world left to conquer, the American cosmetic market. Conquer it she certainly did. It was hilarious to follow her fued with Eve Arden. Just before the American stock market crashed in 1929 Helena sold ninety percent of her company to a Wall Street firm, the Lehman brothers. The sale made her one of the richest women in the world, easily a billionaire, inflation adjusted. Lehman Brothers took the company public by selling stock. The crash destroyed about ninety percent of the stock value. Now Helena showed true brilliance. She got a list of all those who had bought stock from Lehman brothers and she offered to buy it slightly above the post crash price. She soon had control of her company back and when the price rebounded she was all the richer. A girl,from a Polish Shetl out smarted Wall Street.

Here marriage had ups and downs. He cheated on her. Every time he did, she bought herself expensive jewelry. She would divorce and marry a prince.

This is really an interesting book. I learned a lot from it.

Mel u

I love a good biography and this one-Helena Rubinstein: The Woman Who Invented Beauty by Michèle Fitoussi– was so interesting.

Helena Rubinstein was a young firecracker of a girl who did not want to settle down and get married like everyone else her age. She had large ambitions and was a hard worker and through her own dedication, became a huge success. I did not know so many things about her- how she studied skin with doctors, taught herself about various plants and healing herbs, basically how by herself, she created a huge beauty empire. Very inspiring.

I loved learning about Helena!

Awesome story of a powerful woman.

An engaging look into Helena Rubinsteins life. You don't have to be a fan (or even know who she is) to appreciate this fascinating look at a successful women.

Fascinating!!!

I had never heard of Helena Rubinstein until I read this book. Yet, after reading it, she was a woman whose life was full of drama. She was a woman from poverty yet she never gave up on her dreams. She was hard-working and persistent. Yet, I really did not like her. She seemed to me a very arrogant woman, and I could not relate to her. However, I did I liked the writing style. It was engaging and very witty. This book is more for the general reader and those who have never heard of her before. I recommend this novel to anyone interested in Helena's story.