Thursday, April 14, 2011

Maybelline had no competition with Max Facator

  Maybelline devoted exclusively to EYES!




 Tom Lyle Williams was devoted to 
 "Beautiful  Eyes,"



                          Max Factor was best known as
                       "The Makeup artist for the Stars." 


Max Factor started out selling hand made wigs and theatrical make-up to the growing film industry and soon coined the word "make-up" based on the verb phrase "to make up" (one's face) in 1920.  Up until then the term ‘"cosmetics’’ had been used as the term for ‘"make-up" and was considered to be used only by people in the theatre or of dubious reputation and not something to be used in polite society.

When Maybelline was born in 1916 and until the late 1930's, women used the word Maybelline for mascara, saying,  "I need to order Maybelline," not, "I need to buy mascara," and like Max Factors Face Make-up, Maybelline was considered "the Provence of whores" and not used by respectable ladies.  

Maybe that's why Tom Lyle used the term  "Eye Beauty Aids" and marketed Maybelline as pure and healthy for lashes and brows.  Eventually Maybelline was referred to as Mascara and had no negative connotation.


By the 1940's the Factor Brand expanded into a variety of cosmetics while Maybelline remained strictly Eye Beauty.

In this 1937 Maybelline Ad Tom Lyle used brilliant color, a Maybelline First!  As Technicolor film replaced Maybelline's black and white ads.  Notice the products are now attached to cards that were placed on display racks - another Maybelline First, and the 75 cent box of Maybelline was  scaled down to a small 10 cent size so all women could afford a box of Maybelline during the Great Depression.

From 1915 to 1967 when Tom Lyle sold The Maybelline Company to Plough Inc, Maybelline controlled over 75% of the eye beauty market and never experienced competition from any other cosmetic company.

Read more about Maybelline's supreme control of the eye beauty market and Tom Lyle Williams genius as the King of Advertising in "The Maybelline Story."

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