The Global Beauty Industry

The Global Beauty Industry is an interdisciplinary text that uses beauty to explore topics of gender, race, class, colorism, nation, bodies, multiculturalism, transnationalism, and intersectionality. Integrating materials from a wide range of cultural and geo-political contexts, it coalesces with initiatives to produce more internationally relevant curricula in fields such as sociology, as well as cultural, women's/gender, media, and globalization studies.

The global beauty business permeates our lives, influencing how we perceive ourselves and what it is to be beautiful. The brands and firms which have shaped this industry, such as Avon, Coty, Estée Lauder, L'Oréal, and Shiseido, have imagined beauty for us. This book provides the first authoritative history of the global beauty industry from its emergence in the nineteenth century to the present day, exploring how today's global giants grew. It shows how successive generations of entrepreneurs built brands which shaped perceptions of beauty, and the business organizations needed to market them. They democratized access to beauty products, once the privilege of elites, but they also defined the gender and ethnic borders of beauty, and its association with a handful of cities, notably Paris and later New York. The result was a homogenization of beauty ideals throughout the world. Today globalization is changing the beauty industry again; its impact can be seen in a range of competing strategies. Global brands have swept into China, Russia, and India, but at the same time, these brands are having to respond to a far greater diversity of cultures and lifestyles as new markets are opened up worldwide. In the twenty first century, beauty is again being re-imagined anew.

Made Up exposes the multibillion-dollar beauty industry that promotes unrealistic beauty standards through a market basket of advertising tricks, techniques, and technologies. Cosmetics magnate Charles Revson, a founder of Revlon, was quoted as saying, "In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the store, we sell hope." This pioneering entrepreneur, who built an empire on the foundation of nail polish, captured the unvarnished truth about the beauty business in a single metaphor: hope in a jar. Made Up: How the Beauty Industry Manipulates Consumers, Preys on Women’s Insecurities, and Promotes Unattainable Beauty Standards is a thorough examination of innovative, and often controversial, advertising practices used by beauty companies to persuade consumers, mainly women, to buy discretionary goods like cosmetics and scents. These approaches are clearly working: the average American woman will spend around $300,000 on facial products alone during her lifetime. This revealing book traces the evolution of the global beauty industry, discovers what makes beauty consumers tick, explores the persistence and pervasiveness of the feminine beauty ideal, and investigates the myth-making power of beauty advertising. It also examines stereotypical portrayals of women in beauty ads, looks at celebrity beauty endorsements, and dissects the “looks industry.” Made Upuncovers the reality behind an Elysian world of fantasy and romance created by beauty brands that won’t tell women the truth about beauty.

Sustainability has come to the fore in the cosmetics and personal care industry. Rising ethical consumerism and the need for resource efficiency are making cosmetic companies – small, independent firms to global giants – take steps towards sustainable development. Sustainability: How the Cosmetics Industry is Greening Up discusses the growing importance of sustainability in the cosmetics industry, highlighting the various ways organisations can address the economic, environmental and social aspects. How can the cosmetics industry make a difference in terms of ingredients, formulations, packaging, CSR, operations, and green marketing? Topics covered include: Environmental and social impacts of cosmetic products Ethical sourcing and biodiversity Renewable energy and waste management Green formulations and ingredients Green marketing issues and consumer behaviour Green standards, certification schemes and indices in the cosmetics industry Industry experts share their experiences on how they are tackling the challenges of sustainability: from raw material procurements, manufacturing, business processes, to distribution and marketing to consumers. The book concludes with some future growth projections; what are some of the shortcomings in sustainability in the cosmetics industry and what can we expect to see in the future? Sustainability: How the Cosmetics Industry is Greening Up discusses business and technical issues in all areas of sustainable product development, from sourcing ingredients, to formulation, manufacture and packaging. Covering a diverse range of subjects, this book appeals to professionals in many key sectors of the cosmetics and personal care industry; cosmetic chemists, formulation scientists, R&D directors, policy makers, business and marketing executives. It is also of relevance to academic researchers working in cosmetic chemistry and sustainable process development.

An analysis of the American beauty industry discusses the marketing efforts of top cosmetics companies, identifies trends in fashion, and considers the psychological factors that contributes to the industry's success.

Looking through the lens of black business history, Beauty Shop Politics shows how black beauticians in the Jim Crow era parlayed their economic independence and access to a public community space into platforms for activism. Tiffany M. Gill argues that the beauty industry played a crucial role in the creation of the modern black female identity and that the seemingly frivolous space of a beauty salon actually has stimulated social, political, and economic change. From the founding of the National Negro Business League in 1900 and onward, African Americans have embraced the entrepreneurial spirit by starting their own businesses, but black women's forays into the business world were overshadowed by those of black men. With a broad scope that encompasses the role of gossip in salons, ethnic beauty products, and the social meanings of African American hair textures, Gill shows how African American beauty entrepreneurs built and sustained a vibrant culture of activism in beauty salons and schools. Enhanced by lucid portrayals of black beauticians and drawing on archival research and oral histories, Beauty Shop Politics conveys the everyday operations and rich culture of black beauty salons as well as their role in building community.

In his much-anticipated memoir, The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty, Chairman Emeritus and former CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies Leonard A. Lauder shares the business and life lessons he learned as well as the adventures he had while helping transform the mom-and-pop business his mother founded in 1946 in the family kitchen into the beloved brand and ultimately into the iconic global prestige beauty company it is today. In its infancy in the 1940s and 50s, the company comprised a handful of products, sold under a single brand in just a few prestigious department stores across the United States. Today, The Estée Lauder Companies constitutes one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of prestige skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products. It comprises more than 25 brands, whose products are sold in over 150 countries and territories. This growth and success was led by Leonard A. Lauder, Estée Lauder’s oldest son, who envisioned and effected this expansion during a remarkable 60-year tenure, including leading the company as CEO and Chairman. In this captivating personal account complete with great stories as only he can tell them, Mr. Lauder, now known as The Estée Lauder Companies’ “Chief Teaching Officer,” reflects on his childhood, growing up during the Great Depression, the vibrant decades of the post-World War II boom, and his work growing the company into the beauty powerhouse it is today. Mr. Lauder pays loving tribute to his mother Estée Lauder, its eponymous founder, and to the employees of the company, both past and present, while sharing inside stories about the company, including tales of cutthroat rivalry with Charles Revson of Revlon and others. The book offers keen insights on honing ambition, leveraging success, learning from mistakes, and growing an international company in an age of economic turbulence, uncertainty, and fierce competition.

Spa Wars was featured in the New York Times, Time Out New York and American Spa Magazine! What really happens when the spa door closes, the shades shut, and the staff thinks no one is looking? In Spa Wars: The Ugly Truth about the Beauty Industry, seasoned esthetician Lora Condon provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the beauty industry while sharing her personal experiences working in day spas, at cosmetic counters, and as a freelance makeup artist. Lora Condon has been a licensed esthetician for over ten years. Through mouth-dropping, laugh-out-loud personal anecdotes, she reveals all the dirty secrets of the spa and cosmetic and beauty industries. As she uncovers common lies and myths propagated by cosmetic companies, advertisers, and magazines, Condon also addresses common questions and complaints about beauty issues, provides easy-to-apply tips and tricks such as how to keep skin looking young and fresh, and shares her favorite beauty and health items as well as the best therapists, treatments, and organizations. Spa Wars uncovers the ugly truths of a fascinating industry for anyone who has ever wondered what their bikini waxer is really thinking while ripping out their hair.

“Spring 2021’s most compulsively readable biography-meets-memoir tells the story of two women, a century apart, discovering themselves and redefining beauty and success on their own terms.” In 1908, Florence Nightingale Graham moved from the suburbs of Toronto, Canada to Manhattan with dreams of becoming a self-made woman. Within two years, she opened her first beauty salon on Fifth Avenue. Adopting the same name as her company, Elizabeth Arden went on to pioneer the global beauty industry (valued at $532 billion today). At a time when women didn’t have the right to vote, Elizabeth became one of the wealthiest self-made women in the world and the first businesswoman to grace the cover of Time magazine. By the end of the 1930s, it was said “there are only three American names known in every single corner of the globe: Singer Sewing, Coca Cola, and Elizabeth Arden.” One hundred years later, in 2008, at the age of eighteen, Louise Johnson moved from the suburbs of Toronto, Canada to Manhattan to begin her dream internship at the cosmetic giant, Elizabeth Arden. She knew nothing about the beauty industry, but was fascinated by the woman behind the brand whose inspiring legacy was at risk of falling through the cracks of history. Although they lived a century apart, Elizabeth became Louise’s invisible guide as she tried her “successful” lifestyle on for size, with a big career in a big city—but behind the glitz and the glamour, they soon struggled to recognize their true selves. Who are we really behind the makeup we put on our faces? Behind the social media highlight reels? Behind the personas we (consciously and subconsciously) present to the world? This book brings you behind the red doors of Arden, while Louise’s story serves to highlight how much (or how little) has changed a century later. What began as a desire to preserve Elizabeth’s place in history, evolved into an examination of her coming-of-age in the beauty industry and a cultural excavation on a much larger thread that connects us all. Ultimately, this book is about identity and how we learn to navigate the world to find our best self, even if it’s on a different path than we originally anticipated.