By Rama Gaind
By Angus Trumble, La Trobe University Press, $34.99
A cosmetics entrepreneur, Helena Rubinstein (1872–1965) had a commitment to innovation, driven by science with an objective that is as true today as it was a century ago: to empower women through beauty.
As she famously said: “Hard work keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and spirit.” Keeping that thought in mind, adjusting your makeup to the light in which you wear it would have to be sensible advice.
Helena launched her international empire from Australia in 1902, opening the world’s first beauty salon in Melbourne. She arrived here from Poland in 1896. She was a young, diminutive Jewish woman who went to live with her storekeeper uncle in the Victorian town of Coleraine.
In 1910, she identified the first classification for skin according to its nature and needs: oily skin, combination skin or dry skin. She was also the first to submit her products to rigorous scientific testing.
At the height of the popularity of her global cosmetics empire, Helena’s name was synonymous with glamour, with salons in Paris, London and New York and beauty products sold at cosmetics counters around the world.
Much less well-known are the years Rubinstein spent in Australia before she was famous. Recently arrived from Poland, aged 23 and speaking little English, she worked as a governess and waitress before opening her first salon in Melbourne.
A fascinating woman, Angus Trumble retraces Rubinstein’s forgotten Australian years. Later, Helena worked hard to suppress key details of her early life, but they reveal the origins of her extraordinary rise. In the laneways of Melbourne and the dusty streets of Coleraine, we see her laying the foundations of a global empire.
Trumble paints a portrait that’s enthralling and sardonically entertaining.
