Florence Nightingale Graham (December 31, 1878 - October 19, 1966) - who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden - was a Canadian businesswoman who built a cosmetics empire in the United States.

Biography

Arden was born in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada, where she lived until the age of 24. In 1909, Florence Nightingale Graham dropped out of nursing school in Toronto.

She then joined her elder brother in New York City, working briefly as a bookkeeper for the E.R. Squibb Pharmaceuticals Company. While there, she spent hours in their lab, learning about skincare. She then worked - again briefly - for Eleanor Adair, an early beauty culturist, as a "treatment girl".

Career

In 1909 Arden formed a partnership with Elizabeth Hubbard, another culturist. When the partnership dissolved, she coined the business name "Elizabeth Arden" from her former partner and from Tennyson's poem "Enoch Arden".

In 1912 Arden travelled to France to learn beauty and facial massage techniques used in the Paris beauty salons. She returned with a collection of rouges and tinted powders she had created. In an era when it was generally only acceptable for entertainers to wear makeup, Arden introduced modern eye makeup to North America. She also introduced the concept of the "makeover" in her salons.

Arden collaborated with A. Fabian Swanson, a chemist, to create a "fluffy" face cream. The success of the cream, Venetian Cream Amoretta, and corresponding lotion, Arden Skin Tonic, led to a long-lasting business relationship. This revolutionized cosmetics, bringing a scientific approach to formulations. Other innovations included creating foundations that matched a person's skin tone; creating the idea of the "Total Look" in which lip, cheek, and fingernail colors matched or coordinated; and the first to make a cosmetics commercial shown in movie houses.

During World War II, Arden recognized the changing needs of the American woman entering the work force. She showed women how to apply makeup and dress appropriately for careers outside the home. She created a lipstick called Montezuma Red, for the women in the armed forces that would match the red on their uniforms. Although most of her commercial success was in cosmetics, she also pioneered restorative musical exercises based on yoga. She started a fashion business in 1943 with notable designers like Charles James and Oscar de la Renta on staff.

She began expanding her international operations in 1915, and started opening salons across the world. By the end of 1930s, it was said that "There are only three American names that are known in every single corner of the globe: Singer sewing machines, Coca Cola, and Elizabeth Arden." A fact proved by Heinrich Harrer in his book Seven Years in Tibet, where he stated that it's possible to buy Arden's products—even in Tibet. At the peak of her career, she had a salon in New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Maine, Arizona, Phoenix, Southhampton, Surfside, Florida, Palm Beach, Philadelphia, Honolulu, Lima. Toronto, Montreal, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, Johannesburg, London, Paris, Zurich, Vienna, Milan, Rome, Cannes, Madrid, Brussels, Copenhagen, The Hague, London, Ontario, Cape Town, Nassau, Tulsa, Quebec City, and Biarritz. She launched all of them personally and she owned all of them except the one in Paris, which she gave to her sister, Gladys, Vicomtesse de Maublanc.