Elizabeth Arden
Creator of Beauty 1884-1966

When the Humber Valley Conservation Authority was about to open Dalziel Pioneer Park (now Black Creek Pioneer Village) near Woodbridge, Ontario, in 1954, a local notable was sought for the tree-planting ceremony. Someone recalled that Florence Nightingale Graham had been born and had lived on the property until she was 24 years old. Not only was she invited but she came. But her name was different! It was now Elizabeth Arden, one of the most renowned names in the world of glamour.

Elizabeth was then 75 but looked much younger — appropriate for the woman recognized as the creator of beauty since opening a salon on Fifth Avenue, New York City, in 1910. Fortune magazine exclaimed in 1938 that she, as the sole owner of the Elizabeth Arden Company, was probably earning more money than any other woman in U.S. history. She was a Time cover story in 1947; a 1990 issue of Life magazine included her in its special feature — “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century.”

Her return to Woodbridge, in 1954, no doubt brought back memories. She was the third of five children born to a Scottish father and English mother. They had eloped in the early 1870s by sailing to Canada and settling as pioneers in the Woodbridge area where Mr. Graham eked out a living as a market gardener. Following her mother’s death when Florence was only six, she often travelled with her father to the St. Lawrence Market, Toronto, where she learned the art of selling farm produce. At age 17 she went to work.

She took up nursing but found she disliked the profession. She became, in turn, a clerk, a stenographer and a dental assistant, eventually leaving that work in 1908 to move to New York where an older brother had gone to better himself.

At first a bookkeeper with the E.R. Squibb Company, she spent hours in the labs learning all she could about skin care, an interest of hers since her teens when women were at last allowing themselves (or being allowed) to aid nature with a few lotions and creams. When Florence, whose own complexion was superb, had a chance to become a cashier for Eleanor Adair, an early beauty culturist, she quickly left Squibb, successfully pestering Adair to make her a “treatment girl.” Before long clients were asking for “that nice Canadian girl.” In 1909 she went into partnership with another culturist, Elizabeth Hubbard.

Together they opened a salon on Fifth Avenue, but the partnership soon soured. Hubbard moved out leaving Florence to pay the rent. This she did as well as borrow $6,000 from her brother to remodel the salon. She kept the name Elizabeth, and chose “Arden” from Tennyson’s famous poem, “Enoch Arden.” She also called herself “Mrs.” — a title more acceptable those days for females in business.

Each day she arrived early to clean the salon spotlessly before giving treatments from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. At the end of the day, she worked elsewhere as a manicurist under the name Graham, toiled in her laboratory, or managed the accounts. Within six months she had repaid her brother.

When a 1912 edition of Vogue stated that the discreet application of a little paint would enhance a lady’s appearance, Elizabeth concocted a series of rouges and tinted powders that reflected her genius for shades of colour and enhanced her growing reputation with an ever-increasing number of clients. In 1914 she went to Paris where she visited several salons a day to learn their methods. Sailing home on the Lusitania, she met Thomas J. Lewis, a banker she had once approached for a loan. In 1915 they were married.

Following her return, she approached a chemical company to develop a “face cream that was light and fluffy like whipped cream.” A. Fabian Swanson, one of the chemists, succeeded. Elizabeth called it Venetian Cream Amoretta and asked him to develop a lotion to go with it. This success, named Ardena Skin Tonic, led to their enduring collaboration.

In 1918 Elizabeth ran afoul of the U.S. tax system as she had never distinguished between company money and her own income. As a result of this, she hired husband Tommy, an experienced banker and army veteran home from overseas, to handle the books. She also permitted a younger sister, Gladys, to wholesale her products through tours and treatment sessions in major stores — a function Tommy took over with enormous success when, in 1920, Gladys settled in France to promote Arden products there and open a salon in Paris.

Throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, Elizabeth furiously competed against Helena Rubinstein and Dorothy Gray, opening salons in the United States and in such European cities as Cannes, Rome and Berlin. Her products were also marketed worldwide. This allowed her to claim, with a degree of accuracy, that “There are only three American names that are known in every corner of the globe: Singer Sewing Machines, Coca Cola and Elizabeth Arden.”  

Success, however, did not soften her. She made it clear that she ran the company, hired and fired at will, and once admitted, “I don’t want them to love me; I want them to fear me.” She couldn’t accept criticism of her ideas or products and railed against anyone who infringed on her right to run things her way. She once declared that “standards should be set by me and not imposed on me.” Her restlessness and drive also led to a divorce in 1934. A second marriage to a Russian prince in 1942 lasted only 13 months.

As a young girl, Florence had been put in charge of the horses on the Graham’s leased tenant farm. She fell in love with them. Therefore it was quite natural for her to take up horseracing, this time with the same zeal and intensity she had shown in business. Horses were treated like favourite clients: her “Eight Hour Cream” was used for bruises, and Ardena Skin Lotion replaced horse liniment. Trainers, jockeys, and stable hands suffered the same fate as company executives. One trainer put it succinctly: “My mother used to say only horses sweat, people perspire. but here, the horses perspire; it’s the trainers who sweat.”

By the time her racehorse “Jet Pilot” won the Kentucky Derby in 1947, Elizabeth had more than 100 salons across America and Europe and some 300 products on shelves around the world. Her advertising campaigns were famous for creating glamour with such headlines as “Every woman has a right to be beautiful.” Clients at her Fifth Avenue salon included many of the best-known women of America: the Begum Aga Khan, Claire Booth Luce, Toronto-born Beatrice Lillie, and Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

For three decades Elizabeth lived on Fifth Avenue in a ten-room apartment, decorated almost entirely in what had become known as her signature colour — pink. She never retired. In her eighties she still approved advertisements, checked every new product and flew off to visit salons unannounced. She became the second woman member of the Distribution Hall of Fame, was given an honorary Doctor of Laws by Syracuse University, and was presented by France with the Legion of Honour for her contribution to the world of beauty.

Throughout her long career, Miss Arden was a pathfinder. She inspired new ideas and breakthroughs such as full service salons; products for different skin types; eye makeup in North America; exercise classes and records (in 1921); and, makeup to match skin tone just to name a few.

An active and generous supporter of many charities, Elizabeth Arden was a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Women’s Voluntary Services and a founder of the American Symphony. The Lighthouse for the Blind, the March of Dimes and the Heart Fund are but a few of the many causes she enthusiastically supported. “It was a long life and a beautiful one,” observed Women’s Wear Daily in an obituary on October 19, 1966, two days after Elizabeth suffered a heart attack and died overnight. Born New Year’s Eve, 1884, she had, indeed, had a long life.

Although she left a will, the company’s future was not spelled out. It was as if she intended always to be its sole owner, chairman, and president. Eventually in 1971, one of the world’s most famous glamour industries was sold to the Eli Lilly Corporation and then resold in 1989 to Unilever, the consumer goods conglomerate. The dream of the “little Canadian woman with the magic hands” had grown to a reality that even she might not have imagined.