Business Builders in Cosmetics

Describes the history of cosmetics and profiles seven cosmetics entrepreneurs, including Helen Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden, and Max Factor.

Gr 6-9-Kent provides a serviceable look at the development of the cosmetics industry through the stories of seven key entrepreneurs: David McConnell (Avon), Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, Max Factor, Charles Revson (Revlon), Est‚e Lauder, and Anita Roddick (The Body Shop). The introduction sets the stage with a history of cosmetics, beginning with Queen Nefertiti, and tracing the changing perception of makeup from demeaning women to empowering them. A sidebar on Madam C. J. Walker, who created skin-care and hair products for African-American women, is especially intriguing. The subsequent chapters explore the drives, talents, and occasional eccentricities of these empire builders, whose financial success often came at the expense of their personal lives. Sidebars include Mary Kay, Maybelline, Clinique, Gillette, and other related enterprises. The margins are full of interesting tidbits, as well as definitions of words used in the text. The author's writing is clear and lively, and she brings her subjects to multidimensional life. Well-captioned, black-and-white photographs provide glimpses at these makeup moguls, their products, and samples of advertising. Libraries needing additional material on this specialized topic might look to biographies such as Nancy Shuker's Elizabeth Arden (Blackbirch, 2001) or A'Lelia Perry Bundles's Madam C. J. Walker (Chelsea, 1991).-Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.