Women: Hold Fast to Life & Youth

"There's only one Elizabeth like me," she liked to say, with a self-effacing little smile. "And that's the Queen." In fact, Elizabeth Arden, until she died last week in Manhattan at an age given out by her office as 82, was the czarina of the cosmetics business, a Bluegrass princess of the racing circuit, and a self-made multimillionairess with one Manhattan penthouse, one horse farm, a country cottage in Belmont, N.Y., and a 12th century castle in Ireland. More essentially, she was the first woman (or man) to successfully merchandise not merely creams and lotions, but the "Concept of Total Beauty," to remind women—and indeed, to convince them—that they could and should spend freely in order to "hold fast to life and youth."

Behind Red Doors. The year Arden originated the magic formula was 1910, four years before her latter-day archrival, Helena Rubinstein, arrived in the States. It was an era when women washed their own hair, when a lady used glycerine, rose water and talcum powder in moderation, when the vilest words that could be hissed were "She paints." Petite (5 ft. 2½ in.), fluttery, auburn-haired Florence Nightingale Graham was only the daughter of an immigrant Ontario truck farmer, but she intended to be a lady. Borrowing 1) a name from two genteel Victorian books (Elizabeth and Her German Garden and Enoch Arden), 2) the technique of giving "scientific treatments" to customers by massaging on creams and lotions from a previous employer, Eleanor Adair, and 3) $6,000 from a cousin, she set up her first salon, for well-heeled society matrons, in a converted brownstone house at 509 Fifth Avenue. The loan was paid back within six months.

In a few years, "Mrs. Graham," as she preferred to call herself,* began to market creams and lotions separately, added perfumes, and in 1915 dared to introduce New York to the mascara and eye shadow that she imported from France. In time, her cosmetics, some 300 varieties of which are sold today in 44 countries from South Africa to Tibet, became primarily responsible for a gross income estimated at well over $15 million a year; but it was in her salons, invariably marked by a red entrance door, that she created the basic Arden mystique by militantly advertising that "every woman has the right to be beautiful."

Tip to Toe in Paraffin. Elizabeth was a dynamic perfectionist. She could spend months sniffing half a dozen sachets a day in order to find "the most wonderful smell in the world," and insisted on having the bows on packages retied again and again until they reached the exact, proper tilt. Since very few mortals were capable of her degree of dedication, the turnover among Arden employees was a byword in Manhattan career circles; but her exacting policies made great sense to her customers. Inside her salons (now numbering 50 in 33 countries), she similarly tried to perfect the Total Woman—physically, mentally and emotionally—by having her rubbed, scrubbed, pounded, patted, stretched, scented, oiled, tinted, and occasionally encased from tip to toe in paraffin.