Chapter 3: Beauty Culture and Women's Commerce

    Women played an important role in the increase in beauty and cosmetic sales as parlor owners, cosmetic entrepreneurs, and complexion specialists, leading to mass consumption in national advertising and distribution. The need for more employment during this period led to more women joining the commercial and service economy and actually achieving sucessful business primarily in the cosmetics field. Elizabeth Arden, Madame C. J. Walker, Helena Rubinstein, Annie Turnbo Malone, and other well known figures were a few of the signs of rising female leadership through the idealology of beauty culture (the transformation from a personal cultivation of beauty to a culture of shared meanings and routines). These women had different origins, either starting out as poor immigrants or as wealthier higher class ladies, they along with other women patented more products than ever before, paving the way for future women entrepreneurs.

    Though women were leading a growing movement of more independence and economic independence, sexual discrimination had not disappeared, and men typically still handled key positions in finance and marketing within the businesses. In addition, they faced competetion and reluctance from druggists who preferred to shelve products from prestigous male perfumers and needed more convincing and a high demand to sell products made by women, especially African Americans. In response, female beauty culturists developed new ways of distribution, sales, and marketing lik:e mail order, door to door peddling operations, specific hair or skin care programs at beauty schools (some entrepreneurs had franchise operations with these schools), and pyramid organization (multilevel marketing that trained women in a specific beauty method who in turn taught more recruiters, widening the distribution circle). These companies promoted charismatic capitalism, institutions that incorporated a profit organization with characteristics of social reform. 

    Those involved in the beauty business faced a dilemma on how to create a better face for the cosmetics industry when it was so widely viewed as sinful and shameful not so long ago. Men in the beauty trade usually utilized patent dramatic before and after advertisements or sold their miscellaneous cosmetology products rather matter of factly. On the other hand, women tended to use their experiences and personalities to appeal to their consumers more effectively, such as Elizabeth Arden and her "pink" femininity. They often reshaped their images to main active in the industry, like how Helena Rubinstein had an inclusive view, adopting all sorts of girls into her business and supporting the equal rights movement and how Madame C. J. Walker often used her background as a hard worker on the cotton fields to relate with many other African Americans. 

    The way expertise and personality was portrayed through white businesswoman was the key to their success. Although they did not utilize many advertisements as women magazines often banned ads that seemed far fetched and never lent ad space to African American companies, the practice of going door to door and mail order achieved substantial achievement by establishing personal bonds and relationships with clients. In addition, this rising trust led to beauty parlors and salons to become a social meeting place for urban middle and upper class women and eased the embarrassment and ignorance for women discreetly attempting to use cosmetics. Public lectures and demonstrations, like Madame Yale’s “The Religion of Beauty, the Sin of Ugliness”, followed suit and created wide consumerism to a diverse public, advertising to rural and immigrant ladies and promoting that beautification had become necessary rather than shameful. This indicated the shift from paints to make up (enhancing one’s features instead of covering or painting over it) as more women, especially the bourgeois, began to include this ritual in their daily routines. Beauty culturists incorporated this into the feminist movement and ascertained that beauty “was more powerful than the ballot” (pg 87). Soon, prominent figures in cosmetics, like Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, began to transform elitist beauty culture into a modern industry by selling costly cosmetics to high line stores but appealing to all women who had money to spend, urging them to join the high society by purchasing their products.

     The commercial beauty culture for African American remained segregated among whites, especially with the promotion of skin bleachers for white consumers. Some black beauty culturists encouraged the emulation of the white society and asserted that paler skin and straight hair would create more opportunities and social freedom. However, the most significant businesses, like Madame C. J. Walker and Malone, encouraged beauty among the African American community as a method of personal dignity and communal support with succumbing to white standards. Hair grooming brought these ladies together as they advertised orally and through agents in the pyramid organization, spreading rapidly with the lure of a secure job with fair salaries and conditions for black, disabled, or ill women. Walker and Malone also advocated religious principles into their work, along with black women’s rights movements to gain support and justify their institutions. This represented the ideal of the business family group, promoting trade while building up the community. 

    

Questions: 

How did the beauty industry transform women's place in society? 

What kind of ways did businesswoman use to support the rising cosmetics market?