Vintage Beauty Secret: Ponds Vanishing Cold Cream and Witch Hazel, is older than Maybelline

 Nana in 1978, 77 years old.

When Nana was a teenager during WW1, she was already a fan of the miracle cream that kept her skin moisturized while also removing her Maybelline.  As more expensive moisturizing creams became available through the years, Nana continued her nightly routine with Ponds Cold Cream.  In fact she made a science out of it until she perfected it into a facial as good as it gets.


Here's Nana's secret to flawless dewy skin, a trick that kept her looking 20 years younger than her actual age, until the day she died at 77.  

As a girl, I'd sit in her bathroom at night watching her apply ice cold Ponds Cold Cream, which she kept in the refrigerator right next to the tea bags she had ready to depuff her tired eyes. 

"Darling, first you remove all your Maybelline, face makeup and lipstick with Ponds," she'd say, washing her ponds off with a hot  towel, holding it on her face for a minute until it cooled down.  

Next she'd reapply the Ponds, but this time, sitting down in her chair in front of a magnifying mirror where she could study every line on her face.

"Always stroke up, never down darling," she'd say as I followed her example for the next two or three minutes.  She'd stroke her neck 100 times, then do the same thing with her face, using quick strokes from the chin, to the cheeks, around the temples and up to the forehead.  

"It takes practice," she'd say making sure I did it correctly.

"Do it again darling, but this time start at the chin, go around the nose and up to the forehead until your skin is bright pink from the blood coming to the surface."

Once she was satisfied with the results, she'd apply a hot  towel several times until all traces of the Ponds were removed, then wash her face with Neutrogena skin soap.  


Once this labor of love was finished, she'd apply her home made mud pack (Check out the recipe for Nana's Mud, by scrolling down through my blog), apply the tea bags to her eyes (also found in past blogs), lay on her hydroculators (this too, just scroll down) and relax listening to classical music for the next half hour. 


When she washed off the Ponds, or the mud pack, she'd soak a cotton ball with Witch hazel, wipe it over her face and neck as an astringent, than apply eye cream, face cream and hand lotion. She'd top it all off by brushing her hair 100 times, looking radiant when she finally went to bed. 

To this day I still practice most of Nana's beauty tricks and I must say my skin looks pretty good for my age.  Give it a try once a week or more if you have time and experience a facial as good as any professional could give you.

Ponds Vanishing Cold Cream ad in 1917

Ponds Cold Cream

Original Maybeline in the red box with little  brush 1917

Read more about Nana's obsession to perfection, read about her in my book, The Maybelline Story.  Purchase a signed copy from my website today!  

1960's introduced massive competition, here's how Maybelline stayed on top of their game

In the face of massive competition, Maybelline employed a national sales team, under Rags Ragland,

to cover independent drug, chain drug, and discount houses, to check on Maybelline's established Eye Fashion Center installations

and then send turnover orders to the indicated wholesale drug houses.

This was a major move, and expanded Maybelline's budget, to over 6 million dollars, but it was worth it. 

Rags Ragland, with his remarkable communication ability was able to get the sales team to establish a separate operation, composed of 8 widely experienced men to run the whole thing.

These men represented Maybelline only, while many National sales teams, represented up to 40 companies

 at a time

With this set-up, Maybelline successfully met the big competitive threat,

and with the effective development and promotion of their display selling units, that sold to Woolworth, and was now used by K-mart,

they stopped their biggest threat, Chesebrough Ponds. from developing and marketing their competitive eye cosmetic items... 

and after about a year and a half, it was reported they lost many millions of dollars.

Maybelline was the most successful cosmetic company in the world, with a marketing sales team headed by

 Rags Ragland. 

With Maybelline's great success in 1966, Tom Lyle Williams, knew the time was right to sell his company to Plough Inc., a Pharmaceutical company in 1967, for 133 million dollars, or close to one Billion dollars, at today's rate of exchange

At the time of this mailing, August 1, 1966, I happened to be visiting my great aunt and uncle, Eva and Ches Haines, at their home on Lake Mercer, where this package was delivered.   It was that Summer I met my cousin Jerry Westhouse, Eva and Ches Haines, grandson and it was Jerry who found this interesting package of Maybelline history, still at the Lake Mercer home, and sent it to me.

A letter enclosed with the package from Rags Ragland, explains the beautiful displays he designed and truly what gave Maybelline the priceless "shelf value" it had and still commands today almost 50 years later.

My cousin Jerry Westhouse 1973.  Read more about his car racing history, http://www.maybellinebook.com/2014/06/in-celebration-of-hitting-one-million.html 

Visit my beautiful new website Sharrie Williams Author sharriewilliamsauthor.com

Drop by my hilarious 1964 High School Diary Blog called Saffrons Rule at saffronsrule.com