War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden, Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry

Rating:
Summary: Two Women With Similar Ideals
Review: Rubinstein and Arden had a rivalry that you might compare to that of Jack Benny and Fred Allen--i.e. one largely conducted for publicity reasons. Lindy Woodhead has donesome amazing research, can you imagine, she spent months kneeling on the floors of Krakow parishes to find just the right birth certificate for Helena (nee Chaja) Rubinstein--not an easy thing to do, especially given the fact that Rubinstein lied about her age by several years! And in every case Woodhead goes the extra nine yards to try to distinguish what is true and what is false about her two millionairesses. They were among the first to sell American women the "culture of beauty," to insist that the cosmetics they sold would bring the consumer a whole zeitgeist of pleasure, not just individual beauty treatments. To this end they conspired with Madison Avenue and devised decades worth of intriguing, perhaps misleading advertisements.

In the end what lets us down is the feeling that perhaps the two women aren't actually that different, and it gets confusing trying to remember their slight differences--which of the two was four feet ten, while the other was five foot two? A depressing business saga of how the mass public can be manipulated with great success, but they will pay you back in the most final way--they will forget you as soon as you're not alive any more.

Rating:
Summary: War Paint
Review: This is such a juicy story. Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein were two glamorous divas, who come to life and the stories of their personal and business lives are fascinating. The author describes the rivalry between these two women with rich details, describing how their animosity fueled their growing empires. The story is even more interesting because of the times in which they lived, and Woodhead does a great job of explaining their very glamorous social circles. I can't wait to share this book with my friends, especially those who love fashion.