Maybelline 1915 - 2018 The Maybelline Story Embraces the drama, intrigue and history behind the Iconic Maybelline Brand and the family behind it.
Available
THE MAYBELLINE STORY
And the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.
Glamour. Ambition. Family. Betrayal. An American Beauty Empire.
The Maybelline Story is available on Amazon in paperback, including used copies.
Long before Maybelline became one of the most recognizable beauty names in the world, it began with one young man's extraordinary vision—and a family whose lives would become forever intertwined with the empire he created.
In 1915, Tom Lyle Williams recognized an opportunity inspired by his sister, Mabel, and began what would grow from a modest mail-order business in Chicago into the legendary Maybelline Cosmetics Company.
But behind the famous name was another story.
A family story.
Sharrie Williams, Tom Lyle Williams' great-niece and a member of the original Maybelline family, takes readers behind the glamorous advertisements and into the private world of the Williams dynasty.
Drawing upon family history, personal memories, photographs, documents, and stories passed down through generations, Sharrie reveals the remarkable people who lived behind the Maybelline name.
Their story is filled with love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and jealousy, enormous success and devastating loss.
As Maybelline grew from its humble Chicago beginnings into an international cosmetics phenomenon, the Williams family experienced the rewards—and the consequences—of living inside an American empire.
From the excitement of the Roaring Twenties and the glamour of Hollywood to family rivalries, hidden relationships, courtroom battles, tragedy, and extraordinary wealth, The Maybelline Story explores the complicated intersection between family, beauty, power, and business.
This is not simply the history of mascara.
It is the story of the people who created an American beauty legend—and the price some of them paid for being part of it.
MAYBELLINE: 1915–2018
The Maybelline Story embraces the drama, intrigue, glamour, and history behind the iconic Maybelline brand and the spirited family dynasty behind it.
Available on Amazon.
FOREWORD
By Legendary Publicist Michael A. Levine
“A woman’s most powerful possession is a man’s imagination.”
—Tom Lyle Williams, 1934
I think every girl I ever dated as a teenager had one of those pink and green tubes of Maybelline Great Lash mascara stashed in her purse. How on earth would I know this? Because the contents of all those purses regularly spilled out of school lockers, behind bleachers, under the seats of cars….
If they weren’t scrambling to hide their other feminine products, then they were diving for the mascara because THAT was clearly the key to their enchanting doe-eyed beauty.
As I’ve grown older, gotten married, divorced, and dated all over again, I’ve seen the contents of many beautiful women’s cosmetic bags. And there has always been a Maybelline product inside.
I recognize things like this because I’m a brand man myself. At an early age I discovered the power of perception—specifically, the perception of value, which can be even more important than price itself. For example, the Tiffany brand is indomitable because one need only see the powder-blue box and white satin ribbon to think that whatever is inside is premium simply because it comes from Tiffany.
So I was delighted when I was asked to read The Maybelline Story and learn about the origins and growth of this modest company into the best-known eye beauty brand around the world.
What a story it is!
From humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to gangster-ridden Prohibition Chicago, to Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, pin-ups, the Pentagon, and eventually the whole world, this is a classic tale of a makeshift product that developed out of one woman’s innovative need to fix something else—and her brother’s prescient understanding that she was onto something BIG!
In 1915, Mabel Williams singed her eyelashes and brows while cooking. Horrified that she no longer looked feminine, she concocted a mixture and applied it to her remaining lashes and brows, giving her some added sparkle and sheen. One of her brothers, Tom Lyle Williams, noticed the successful effect.
But he also noticed something more profound: a woman’s eyes were her calling card.
“Come look at me.”
“Coax me out of my bashfulness.”
“Yes, I’m flirting.”
“I’m interested in you.”
He appreciated beauty in all women, and their beauty spoke to him straight through their eyes. Tom Lyle wanted to reproduce his sister’s “formula” to see whether regular women would pay a little to “up” the glamour in themselves.
All he needed was $500 and a rudimentary chemistry set to give his idea a real try. But gathering $500 in 1915 wasn’t easy. So when his brother Noel offered to loan him the money, he promised to repay him in full.
Little did any of them realize then that Noel would receive a return on his investment similar to the original investors in Microsoft or Apple!
For over a half century, Maybelline operated as a private company owned by the Williams family. What Tom Lyle, his brother, and sister started as a small mail-order business eventually became an internationally recognized brand.
I can tell you: it’s one thing to recognize a winning product discovered by accident, and quite another to turn it into an empire that, for decades, transcended all competition and remains an icon to this day.
How does one do that?
Precisely by branding.
By taking an exceptional product and equating it with excellence in every way. By having a constant, relentless drive to promote a desirable image through that product. By turning that product into the sine qua non of, in this case, eye beauty.
Tom Lyle Williams packaged and sold artifice—the importance of beautiful eyes. He made eye beauty the singular defining quality of a beautiful woman, and he branded Maybelline as representative of perfect beauty.
His genius was in convincing millions of women the world over to buy Maybelline with the absolute conviction that using Maybelline eye products would truly make them perfectly beautiful.
Unlike most folks in Hollywood, this unlikeliest of legends kept a low personal profile and let his creativity speak through his work.
In my opinion, Tom Lyle Williams can teach us more about branding than Colonel Sanders, Calvin Klein, and Coco Chanel combined.
He was among the early pioneers who understood the enormous promotional power of movie stars, mass advertising, broadcast media, market research, and—perhaps most importantly—the buying power of women.
Surely such a creative man must have had a muse…perhaps some woman he thought the ideal version of his own vision of beauty?
Indeed!
While he named the company for his sister, his muse was actually his sister-in-law, Evelyn.
She was gorgeous, smart, and often too smart for her own good.
The drama of this family-business story, as with many such sagas, lies in deciphering where the family and the business intersected, frequently came to loggerheads, and sometimes went to court.
Secrets existed. Lies were told. Facades masqueraded as truth—often to protect the family from itself, and always to protect Maybelline above all else.
Edison made light bulbs.
Ford manufactured cars.
Here’s another great American rags-to-riches story.
This time the name is Williams.
The cash cow wore mascara—and Maybelline.
— Michael A. Levine
PRAISE FOR THE MAYBELLINE STORY
Review by Kate Farrell of Kate’s Reads
“It is vintage Hollywood, with all of the glamour, greed, passion and intrigue you would expect.”
The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It, by Sharrie Williams, is a gripping memoir of the cosmetics company and her own family.
Tom Lyle, the company’s founder and patriarch of the family, discovers the idea for mascara from an incident with his sister, Mabel. He turns the idea into a business venture and begins a successful mail-order marketing campaign. He names the company Maybelline in honor of his sister.
Over the years, the business grows and reaches the brink, only to be brought back to success by Lyle’s business and marketing savvy.
He was truly an entrepreneur.
The extended family is filled with interesting and colorful personalities. Most of them are involved in the company in some shape or form—or at least dependent on their share of the family fortune.
How they interact with each other and get tangled up in drama makes for titillating reading. The author does not seem to have left any skeletons in the closet or stones unturned.
This is a very engaging memoir.
Williams’ writing brings all the players to life and makes the reader anxious to know what happens to them next. It has all the ingredients for a great piece of fiction but is even better when you realize it all really happened.
A great read!
— Kate Farrell, Kate’s Reads
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE STORY
Sharrie Williams was born into the Maybelline legacy.
As the great-niece of founder Tom Lyle Williams and granddaughter of Evelyn Williams—the glamorous woman who became one of the most fascinating figures in the family story—Sharrie grew up hearing the stories behind the famous Maybelline name.
She witnessed firsthand how deeply beauty, ambition, family loyalty, and the Maybelline legacy shaped generations of the Williams family.
Years later, she set out to preserve that history.
The result is The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It—a deeply personal account of the extraordinary family behind one of America's most enduring beauty names.
Behind every great empire is a family.
Behind every family are secrets.
Behind Maybelline is a story almost too extraordinary to be true.
But it happened.
Discover The Maybelline Story.
THE MAYBELLINE STORY
And the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.
Glamour. Ambition. Family. Betrayal. An American Beauty Empire.
The Maybelline Story is available on Amazon in paperback, including used copies.
Long before Maybelline became one of the most recognizable beauty names in the world, it began with one young man's extraordinary vision—and a family whose lives would become forever intertwined with the empire he created.
In 1915, Tom Lyle Williams recognized an opportunity inspired by his sister, Mabel, and began what would grow from a modest mail-order business in Chicago into the legendary Maybelline Cosmetics Company.
But behind the famous name was another story.
A family story.
Sharrie Williams, Tom Lyle Williams' great-niece and a member of the original Maybelline family, takes readers behind the glamorous advertisements and into the private world of the Williams dynasty.
Drawing upon family history, personal memories, photographs, documents, and stories passed down through generations, Sharrie reveals the remarkable people who lived behind the Maybelline name.
Their story is filled with love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and jealousy, enormous success and devastating loss.
As Maybelline grew from its humble Chicago beginnings into an international cosmetics phenomenon, the Williams family experienced the rewards—and the consequences—of living inside an American empire.
From the excitement of the Roaring Twenties and the glamour of Hollywood to family rivalries, hidden relationships, courtroom battles, tragedy, and extraordinary wealth, The Maybelline Story explores the complicated intersection between family, beauty, power, and business.
This is not simply the history of mascara.
It is the story of the people who created an American beauty legend—and the price some of them paid for being part of it.
MAYBELLINE: 1915–2018
The Maybelline Story embraces the drama, intrigue, glamour, and history behind the iconic Maybelline brand and the spirited family dynasty behind it.
Available on Amazon.
FOREWORD
By Legendary Publicist Michael A. Levine
“A woman’s most powerful possession is a man’s imagination.”
—Tom Lyle Williams, 1934
I think every girl I ever dated as a teenager had one of those pink and green tubes of Maybelline Great Lash mascara stashed in her purse. How on earth would I know this? Because the contents of all those purses regularly spilled out of school lockers, behind bleachers, under the seats of cars….
If they weren’t scrambling to hide their other feminine products, then they were diving for the mascara because THAT was clearly the key to their enchanting doe-eyed beauty.
As I’ve grown older, gotten married, divorced, and dated all over again, I’ve seen the contents of many beautiful women’s cosmetic bags. And there has always been a Maybelline product inside.
I recognize things like this because I’m a brand man myself. At an early age I discovered the power of perception—specifically, the perception of value, which can be even more important than price itself. For example, the Tiffany brand is indomitable because one need only see the powder-blue box and white satin ribbon to think that whatever is inside is premium simply because it comes from Tiffany.
So I was delighted when I was asked to read The Maybelline Story and learn about the origins and growth of this modest company into the best-known eye beauty brand around the world.
What a story it is!
From humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to gangster-ridden Prohibition Chicago, to Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, pin-ups, the Pentagon, and eventually the whole world, this is a classic tale of a makeshift product that developed out of one woman’s innovative need to fix something else—and her brother’s prescient understanding that she was onto something BIG!
In 1915, Mabel Williams singed her eyelashes and brows while cooking. Horrified that she no longer looked feminine, she concocted a mixture and applied it to her remaining lashes and brows, giving her some added sparkle and sheen. One of her brothers, Tom Lyle Williams, noticed the successful effect.
But he also noticed something more profound: a woman’s eyes were her calling card.
“Come look at me.”
“Coax me out of my bashfulness.”
“Yes, I’m flirting.”
“I’m interested in you.”
He appreciated beauty in all women, and their beauty spoke to him straight through their eyes. Tom Lyle wanted to reproduce his sister’s “formula” to see whether regular women would pay a little to “up” the glamour in themselves.
All he needed was $500 and a rudimentary chemistry set to give his idea a real try. But gathering $500 in 1915 wasn’t easy. So when his brother Noel offered to loan him the money, he promised to repay him in full.
Little did any of them realize then that Noel would receive a return on his investment similar to the original investors in Microsoft or Apple!
For over a half century, Maybelline operated as a private company owned by the Williams family. What Tom Lyle, his brother, and sister started as a small mail-order business eventually became an internationally recognized brand.
I can tell you: it’s one thing to recognize a winning product discovered by accident, and quite another to turn it into an empire that, for decades, transcended all competition and remains an icon to this day.
How does one do that?
Precisely by branding.
By taking an exceptional product and equating it with excellence in every way. By having a constant, relentless drive to promote a desirable image through that product. By turning that product into the sine qua non of, in this case, eye beauty.
Tom Lyle Williams packaged and sold artifice—the importance of beautiful eyes. He made eye beauty the singular defining quality of a beautiful woman, and he branded Maybelline as representative of perfect beauty.
His genius was in convincing millions of women the world over to buy Maybelline with the absolute conviction that using Maybelline eye products would truly make them perfectly beautiful.
Unlike most folks in Hollywood, this unlikeliest of legends kept a low personal profile and let his creativity speak through his work.
In my opinion, Tom Lyle Williams can teach us more about branding than Colonel Sanders, Calvin Klein, and Coco Chanel combined.
He was among the early pioneers who understood the enormous promotional power of movie stars, mass advertising, broadcast media, market research, and—perhaps most importantly—the buying power of women.
Surely such a creative man must have had a muse…perhaps some woman he thought the ideal version of his own vision of beauty?
Indeed!
While he named the company for his sister, his muse was actually his sister-in-law, Evelyn.
She was gorgeous, smart, and often too smart for her own good.
The drama of this family-business story, as with many such sagas, lies in deciphering where the family and the business intersected, frequently came to loggerheads, and sometimes went to court.
Secrets existed. Lies were told. Facades masqueraded as truth—often to protect the family from itself, and always to protect Maybelline above all else.
Edison made light bulbs.
Ford manufactured cars.
Here’s another great American rags-to-riches story.
This time the name is Williams.
The cash cow wore mascara—and Maybelline.
— Michael A. Levine
PRAISE FOR THE MAYBELLINE STORY
Review by Kate Farrell of Kate’s Reads
“It is vintage Hollywood, with all of the glamour, greed, passion and intrigue you would expect.”
The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It, by Sharrie Williams, is a gripping memoir of the cosmetics company and her own family.
Tom Lyle, the company’s founder and patriarch of the family, discovers the idea for mascara from an incident with his sister, Mabel. He turns the idea into a business venture and begins a successful mail-order marketing campaign. He names the company Maybelline in honor of his sister.
Over the years, the business grows and reaches the brink, only to be brought back to success by Lyle’s business and marketing savvy.
He was truly an entrepreneur.
The extended family is filled with interesting and colorful personalities. Most of them are involved in the company in some shape or form—or at least dependent on their share of the family fortune.
How they interact with each other and get tangled up in drama makes for titillating reading. The author does not seem to have left any skeletons in the closet or stones unturned.
This is a very engaging memoir.
Williams’ writing brings all the players to life and makes the reader anxious to know what happens to them next. It has all the ingredients for a great piece of fiction but is even better when you realize it all really happened.
A great read!
— Kate Farrell, Kate’s Reads
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE STORY
Sharrie Williams was born into the Maybelline legacy.
As the great-niece of founder Tom Lyle Williams and granddaughter of Evelyn Williams—the glamorous woman who became one of the most fascinating figures in the family story—Sharrie grew up hearing the stories behind the famous Maybelline name.
She witnessed firsthand how deeply beauty, ambition, family loyalty, and the Maybelline legacy shaped generations of the Williams family.
Years later, she set out to preserve that history.
The result is The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It—a deeply personal account of the extraordinary family behind one of America's most enduring beauty names.
Behind every great empire is a family.
Behind every family are secrets.
Behind Maybelline is a story almost too extraordinary to be true.
But it happened.
Discover The Maybelline Story.
FORWORD by Legendary Publicist, Michael A. Levine
“A woman’s most powerful possession is a man’s imagination.”
Tom Lyle Williams, 1934
I
think every girl I ever dated as a teenager had one of those pink and
green tubes of Maybelline Great Lash mascara stashed in her purse. How
on earth would I know this? Because the contents of all those purses
regularly spilled out of school lockers, behind bleachers, under the
seats of cars…. If they weren’t scrambling to hide their other feminine
products, then they were diving for the mascara because THAT wasclearly the key to their enchanting doe-eyed beauty.
As
I’ve grown older, gotten married, divorced, and dated all over again,
I’ve seen the contents of many beautiful women’s cosmetic bags. And
there has always been a Maybelline product inside.
I
recognize things like this because I’m a brand man myself. At an early
age I discovered the power of perception…specifically, the perception
of value, which can be even more important than price itself. For
example, the Tiffany brand is indomitable because one need only see the
powder-blue box and white satin ribbon to think that whatever is inside is premium simply because it comes from Tiffany.
So I was delighted when I was asked to read The Maybelline Story and
learn about the origins and growth of this modest company into the
best-known eye beauty brand around the world. What a story it is!
From
humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to gangster-ridden Prohibition
Chicago, to Hollywood in the ‘30s and ‘40s, pin-ups, the Pentagon, and
eventually, the whole world, this is a classic tale of a makeshift
product that developed out of one woman’s innovative need to fix
something else, and her brother’s prescient understanding that she was
onto something BIG!
In
1915, Mabel Williams singed her eyelashes and brows while cooking.
Horrified that she no longer looked feminine, she concocted a mixture
and applied it to her remaining lashes and brows, giving her some added
sparkle and sheen. One of her brothers, Tom Lyle Williams, noticed the
successful effect.
But
he also noticed something more profound: a woman’s eyes were her
calling card. “Come look at me.” “Coax me out of my bashfulness.”
“Yes, I’m flirting.” “I’m interested in you.” He appreciated
beauty in all women, and their beauty spoke to him straight through
their eyes. Tom Lyle wanted to reproduce his sister’s “formula” to see
whether regular women would pay a little to “up” the glamour in
themselves.
All
he needed was $500 and a rudimentary chemistry set to give his idea a
real try. But gathering $500 in 1915 wasn’t easy. So when his brother
Noel offered to loan him the money, he promised to repay him in full.
Little did any of them realize then that Noel would receive a return on
his investment similar to the original investors in Microsoft or Apple!
For
over a half century, Maybelline operated as a private company owned by
the Williams family. What Tom Lyle, his brother and sister started as a
small, mail-order business eventually became an internationally
recognized brand purchased 82 years later by French conglomerate L’Oreal
for over 700 million.
I
can tell you: it’s one thing to recognize a winning product discovered
by accident, and quite another to turn it into an empire that, for
decades, transcended all competition and remains an icon to this day.
How
does one do that? Precisely by branding. By taking an exceptional
product and equating it with excellence in every way. By having a
constant, relentless drive to promote a desirable image through that
product. By turning that product into the sine qua non of, in this case, eye beauty.
Tom Lyle Williams packaged and sold artifice – the importance of beautiful eyes. He made eye beauty the singular defining
quality of a beautiful woman, and he branded Maybelline as
representative of perfect beauty. His genius was in convincing millions
of women the world over to buy Maybelline with the absolute conviction
that using Maybelline eye products would truly make them perfectly
beautiful.
Unlike
most folks in Hollywood, this unlikeliest of legends kept a low
personal profile and let his creativity speak through his work. In my
opinion, Tom Lyle Williams can teach us more about branding than Colonel
Sanders, Calvin Klein, and Coco Chanel combined. He was first to
enlist movie stars to promote his products. One of the first companies
to promote corporate social responsibility by supporting war bonds.
First to take advantage of advertising on broadcast television. First
to employ market research. And first to truly understand the buying
power of women.
Surely
such a creative man must have had a muse…perhaps some woman he thought
the ideal version of his own vision of beauty? Indeed! While he named
the company for his sister, his muse was actually his sister-in-law,
Evelyn. She was gorgeous, smart, and often too smart for her own good.
The
drama of this family-business-story, as with many such sagas, lies in
deciphering where the family and the business intersected, frequently
came to loggerheads, and sometimes went to court. Secrets existed, lies
were told, and facades masqueraded as truth – often to protect the
family from itself, and always to protect Maybelline above all else.
Edison
made light bulbs. Ford manufactured cars. Here’s another great
American rags-to-riches story. This time the name is Williams. The
cash cow wore mascara and Maybelline.
Review By Kate Farrell of Kates Reads
www.katesreads.com
@KatesReads
“The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Dynasty Behind It”, by Sharrie Williams is a gripping memoir of the cosmetics company and her own family. It is vintage Hollywood, with all of the glamour, greed, passion and intrigue you would expect.
Tom Lyle, the company’s founder and patriarch of the family, discovers the idea for mascara from an incident with his sister, Mabel. He turns the idea into a business venture and begins a successful mail-order marketing campaign. He names the company Maybelline in honor of his sister. Over the years the business will grow and then reach the brink only to be brought back to success by Lyle’s business and marketing savvy. He was truly an entrepreneur.
The extended family is filled with interesting and colorful personalities. Most of them are involved in the company in some shape or form; or at least dependent on their share of the family fortune. How they interact with each other and get tangled up in drama makes for titillating reading. The author does not seem to have left any skeletons in the closet or stones unturned.
This is a very engaging memoir. Williams’ writing brings all the players to life and makes the reader anxious to know what happens to them next. It has all the ingredients for a great piece of fiction but is even better when you realize it all really happened. A great read!
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