Max Factor Put Shine on Cosmetics Industry : After 80 Years, Market Is $18 Billion
During a 1920s press conference with Max Factor, a reporter approached the legendary Hollywood makeup man and remarked, “How wonderful for you to be involved in makeup--it’s an art.”
“It isn’t art,” replied the man who had no such illusions about cosmetics. “It’s a business.”
Time proved Max Factor right.
Worldwide cosmetics sales are expected to top $18 billion in 1990.
“He knew back then,” says Robert Salvatore, beauty director and curator of the Max Factor Museum of Beauty in Hollywood.
In just 80 years, cosmetics have grown from a few paints and powders that Factor peddled to movie stars to hundreds of product lines appealing to a mass market.
Salvatore, a wisecracking fellow who sports a mustache and black leather pants, recently discussed the birth of the cosmetics industry at “The Business of Beauty” seminar presented by the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Costa Mesa.
The institute aimed the seminar at teen-agers interested in enrolling in a new course of study devoted entirely to cosmetic and fragrance merchandising. It’s yet another sign of the industry’s strength.
Many in Salvatore’s audience hope to walk in Factor’s footsteps.
“I want to be a fashion designer and makeup artist,” says 15-year-old Robyn Ashley of Costa Mesa. “When you go into a mall, that’s all there is--fashion and makeup.”
Loriann Smith, a 20-year-old Costa Mesa resident, is interested in the institute’s new program because she wants to sell fragrances.
“Right now I’m a perfume-aholic. I love collecting perfumes,” she says.
That teen-agers should want a career in cosmetics should come as no surprise. Makeup plays a big part in their lives, and girls spend many hours before the cosmetics counter.
A 1988 Rand Youth Poll found teen-age girls between 16 and 19 years old have about $70 a week to spend on whatever they want, and what they want is makeup. More than a quarter of their income goes to buying cosmetics.
Even Factor would have been impressed.
“The other day my sister and I got a facial. We ended up buying tons of makeup,” says Nicolette Graviss, 18, of Bakersfield, who will attend the institute in September. She goes shopping two or three times a week and spends about 20% of her money on cosmetics.
“I spend the rest on clothes,” she says.
Cosmetics owe their widespread use to Factor.
A wig maker and makeup artist for the Royal Ballet in czarist Russia, Factor moved to the Los Angeles theater district and set up shop in 1909. He was soon making wigs for “every man, woman, child and horse” in the movies, according to Salvatore.
“When the horse needed a fuller tail, they turned to Max,” he says. “He worked on all ends.”
When Factor started selling cosmetics in the 1910s, only actors and actresses would buy them--for good reason. The products looked ridiculous in real life. While filming, movie stars wore heavy pancake and colored their lips brown so they would look red on the black and white screen.
To satisfy off-camera people’s desire to look like movie stars, Factor introduced “Society Makeup,” the first cosmetics line for ordinary faces.
“Up to then, you bit your lips and pinched your cheeks,” Salvatore says. Nobody had even heard of makeup--Factor had coined the word.
Many products on beauty shelves today originated with the company.
Factor invented eye shadows in just two shades--brown and gray--not the rainbow of colors seen today. Salvatore finds it ironic that those same earth tones are in vogue in the ‘90s. Factor’s other innovations include false eyelashes, eyebrow pencil, eye shadow, lip gloss and lip brush.
At first, many people didn’t know what to make of Factor’s newfangled products. Salvatore tells of an unfortunate incident involving a new beauty aide called cold cream.
“While on location in Cuba, during very hot weather, house guests of Mary Pickford stole into her refrigerator and ate the cold cream,” he says. “They thought it was dessert.”
After Factor’s death in 1938, his sons carried on the business, building up the company name with magazine ads that paired its products with screen idols such as Lucille Ball, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland and Jean Harlow.
Many of the original products invented by Factor and his sons can be seen at the Max Factor Museum of Beautyin Hollywood, which housed the original Max Factor Hollywood Makeup Salon.
A few of their wackier creations never gained popular use.
The Beauty Calibrator, for example, resembles a medieval torture device, with screws and metal rods protruding from all points of the head. The instrument measured the faces of screen beauties to pinpoint flaws that needed makeup. While the concept sounds far out, it’s not much different than the computer-generated images in modern cosmetic departments that show customers how they would look with their flaws glossed over with makeup.
The Kissing Machine, another strange artifact, simulated a perfect kiss by smacking two pairs of rubberized lips together under 10 pounds of pressure to test the indelibility of lipstick.
Salvatore has run the museum since its opening in 1984. A Hollywood makeup artist, he peppers his talk on Max Factor history with makeup tips. In the tradition of Max Factor, he has worked with Bo Derek, Cheryl Ladd, Jaclyn Smith, Goldie Hawn and Jane Seymour.
“People have more cosmetics than they need, but they don’t know how to use them,” he says. “They don’t look any better with makeup, they just look different.
“The average woman hasn’t changed her makeup in 10 to 15 years. They stop in their vintage year. They say, ‘I looked good in ‘56, so I’ll stay that way.’ ”
He pulls a brunette from the audience to demonstrate his techniques, outlining her eye with a charcoal pencil and adding a dark eye shadow beneath her brow. The neutral tones enhance her features.
Salvatore discourages women from trying to match their makeup with their wardrobe.
“Your eyes should be the mirror of your soul, not your closet. Everyone should have on brown or gray eye shadow. Instead they wear purple, purple, purple.
“If you have anything frosted, throw it away. Frosted lipstick looks like the hind leg of an alligator. When you smile it leaves all these creases.”
Such advice isn’t lost on his impressionable audience.
“How many of you used to love to play with mother’s cosmetics?” asks Sherron West, a free-lance cosmetics representative who told the teen-agers about the career opportunities awaiting them in the beauty business. Nearly all of the girls raise their hands.
“How many feel cosmetics make you feel better about yourself?” The hands go up again.
“How many of you wouldn’t leave home without putting on your makeup?” The girls giggle and look sheepish as they wave their hands.
Somewhere, Max Factor must be smiling.
