Maybelline's place in the History of Makeup

 

History of Mascara

   

CAlanna Martine Kilkeary

Our Beauty P.I. series is where Makeup.com editor Alanna delves into the history of various makeup products — where they originated from and how they’ve evolved. Next up on the list is the conception of mascara.9

The human body has a knack for genius traits, and one of its best traits is its ability to protect itself from outside harm. Take hair, for example: It’s a natural defense system that coats the skin and is meant to keep bacteria at bay. Another similar protecting barrier? Eyelashes. Meant to divert, protect and defend the precious sclera and cornea, lashes are a lot more than just a charming feature.

Mascara: The OG Protector

This is why it’s actually no surprise that mascara was one of the first makeup products to exist — it was created as another layer and practical mean of protection around the eye. The precursor to what we know as mascara began way back when — around 4000 BC in Ancient Egypt. Beauty gurus would use mixtures of kohl and ointments to darken and accentuate the lashes, and this OG version even helped protect the eyes from bright sunlight, Marie Claire reports. Like many things in the ancient world, these early mascara practices also coincided with spiritual phenomena: Not only is the mascara a protectant of the physical eye, but also a shield to ward off any bad juju — and although archaic, that’s something we can stiill get behind.

But the origin of mascara doesn’t stop there. Ancient Romans also had a heavy hand in the practice of darkening lashes, and the first Persian-founded cosmetology school taught women how to formulate their own mascaras around 900 BCE, Popsugar Beauty reports. With the major rise in makeup (and Queen Liz-inspired red locks) centuries later during the Elizabethan Era, women began experimenting with dyeing their lashesusing berries and fireplace soot (pretty is as pretty does, I suppose).

The Rise of the Formula as We Know It

Although ambiguous, the term “mascara” is thought to have been derived from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian words, màscara and maschera, meaning mask or stain. The first modern predecessor to mascara as we know it came from a French chemist named Eugène Rimmel, yep — saying it louder for those in the back: that Rimmel — for Queen Victoria. What was finally different about Rimmel’s formula was that he used the newly invented petroleum jelly, which he mixed with coal to create the new mascara formula — and bingo, modern mascara was born.

As the 20th century rolled around, American businessman Thomas Lyle Williams created a similar mascara product for his sister Maybel, and by 1917 he had his first cosmetic mail order business selling Lash-Brow-Ine. This applicable mascara was the very first marketable mascara in the cosmetic industry, and soon its name changed to a familiar one we know and love:Maybelline — after Ms. Williams herself, *yep, mind blown.*

Without surprise, mascara became a household item in the cosmetics world, with bigger beauty giants jumping on the trend, like makeup maven Helena Rubinstein. Even more interesting, the original design of the first mascaras came in cake form where the product was packed into a palette and sold with a small brush (you can even buy one here!). And with the rise of Hollywood actresses, costume makeup and false lashes of the 30s, mascara transformed from practical to coveted, and it’s this versatility that has allowed it to be one of the most-sought after makeup products for just about everyone who wears makeup.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that mascara evolved into tube form, thanks to Rubinstein’s Mascara- Matic and Maybelline Ultra-Lash. The tube truly revolutionized mascara and forever changed the way in which we apply and use it. Mascara finally achieved the ultimate makeup goal: It became totally effortless.

Lashes on Fleek

Today, mascara still transforms its wearer, but even more so than ever before: Now it enhances, lengthens, thickens, curls and darkens (or even colors blue or purple or burgundy). Mascara is one of those astonishing makeup products that has come full circle, beginning as a fierce protector of the eyes against sunlight and terrain, and becoming a must-have for all kinds of makeup gurus out there.

There’s a reason why mascara is often one of the first makeup products beauty amateurs reach for. With the swipe of its wand, it makes you feel that little bit of magic that is makeup

Digi/Writing interview, " What inspired you to write The Maybelline Story"

 

            I Am A Writer Series – Writing Tips 

Q&A With Sharrie Williams

Want to know what other writers think? Check out our I Am A Writer Series where we ask writers to share tips, experiences, and thoughts about what matters to them.

When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer?

I kept a diary at fifteen and expanded to intensive journal keeping in my thirties. After my grandmother, Miss Maybelline’s, mysterious death, I knew I had to tell her story. That’s how my book The Maybelline Story was inspired.

Have you ever tried writing in a cafe? How did you find the experience?

When I was writing The Maybelline Story I’d sometimes go to Starbucks when I didn’t have internet where I was visiting. I found it better than a library. It was comfortable, and I liked the hum of people coming and going. If I needed to ask a question, I’d ask it out loud, and usually someone else working on their computer would come over and help me.

What was your favourite subject in school? Were you always a strong writer?

I was a drama major in high school and junior college. I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology. Both subjects taught me to be a great story teller and, combined with my journaling, I progressively became a strong writer.

Do you imagine the world you’re going to write about before you write it? Or does it come to you through the story?

Being an Ira Progroff intensive journal keepingstudent for over thirty-five years, I have learned to tap into my inner world and develop stories I never dreamed of. It’s called automatic writing. I go into a meditation space and just let my characters tell me their stories. That’s how I wrote The Maybelline Story.

Do you get writer’s block? If so, what technique gets you writing again?

When I’m intensely writing or editing I get burned out after spending several hours in the deep space of my inner world, connecting with my characters, and have to rest. I do yoga every day and must sleep nine hours or more. It’s like turning to ice and having to thaw out. But I love it.

Author Bio

Sharrie Williams, heir to the Maybelline legacy, is Tom Lyle Williams’ great-niece and is steward of the vast Maybelline archives. Sharrie tells the story of the birth of the Maybelline empire and reveals intimate and never-before-told details about the fascinating family dynasty behind it.  Sharrie has been featured on Good Morning Arizona, Arizona TV: The Morning Scramble, KCAL 9, CBS California, and ABC 7, Chicago. She has also been featured in many online and print magazines in Canada, Australia, and the UK. She is currently published in China, Spain, Poland Czechoslovakia and Estonia. She's also a Hollywood reporter for a financial podcast called, Investigating with Gavin Graham. 

How many women in the world are aware that they owe a debt of gratitude to a young lady called Mabel Williams.

 

The resourceful girl had a flash of inspiration and burned a cork, mixed the ashes with some Vaseline and then applied it to what was left of her lashes. In an instant she resembled a Hollywood starlet! ‘Eureka!’ – mascara was born ! Not exactly of course. The art of dying lashes goes back to Cleopatra, but there was no removable cosmetic of this kind that a woman could buy over the counter.

Her brother Tom along with his brother Noel took this idea and developed Lash Brow Line – the worlds first commercially available mascara.In 1916 he changed the name to Maybelline – named after – you guessed it – Maybel Williams! The name being a combination of Maybel and Vaseline !

Maybelline's namesake, Mabel Williams Vintage Wedding Album pictures

Mabel may have put  the "M" in Maybelline, but, she had no interest in being just another "It Girl," or "Vamp."  She was a traditional, 32 year old, Southern Lady, waiting for her man to come along.  

Unbeknownst to her, Chester Randolph Hewes, was living in Chicago and working at Montgomery Wards, in the automotive, advertising department.

Mabel's brother, Maybelline founder, Tom Lyle Williams with the Bride and Groom and Chet's sister Bonnie.

At the time Chester, was involved with an English girl he'd met in England, while in the Navy, during WW l.  He had said goodbye to her and her family after his stint was over, headed back to the US, got a job and was busy working.  When all of a sudden, Connie, her mother and several grown brothers showed up on his doorstep.

Mabel with her father, Thomas Jefferson Williams

He told her he did not want to marry her, but being a gentleman, arranged for an apartment for the family and  jobs for her brothers.  After awhile she realized Chester, just wasn't that into her, so, packed up her family and sadly, headed back to England.

1928 Mabel and Chet with their first child, Shirley

Mabel met Chester, through his sister Bonnie when he came to pick up Bonnie at a bridal shower given at the home of Chester's then girlfriend.  Mabel was also a guest and after Chester met her, he told a friend, Mabel was the girl he was going to marry.

1934, Mabel and Chet with their three children, Shirley, Tommy and baby Joyce.

Mabel is the Bell in Maybelline and still rings clear today and always.

MGM, Louie B. Mayer, and the Star Factory is very much part of The Maybelline Story

 

My Grandfather, Andrew Mac Donald, known as Mac at MGM started his career in 1915 at Metro Pictures and when Metro joined Goldwyn and Mayer he continued working in the construction department and went on to oversee 7 departments altogether.  Upon his retirement in 1968, MGM gave him this beautiful pin and a gold watch for his lifetime service. He was a Motion Picture and Special Effects Pioneer for over 55 years.

Mac, shown in his white overalls, ran the construction department at MGM. His crew was responsible for building every set and sound stage at the Studio. He was closely connected with Louie B. Mayer and was known for always coming in under budget, after Cedric Gibbons, MGM's Art Directer, gave him the set designs to be used for a picture. I'm very proud of My MGM roots and love this amazing piece of Film Industry History. 
My Great uncle Tom Lyle Williams, founder of the Maybelline Company in 1915 also had a history with MGM and Louie B. Mayer.

Louis B. Mayer, the Godfather of The Hollywood Star System, created Super Stars out of starlets. But not without the help of Tom Lyle Williams and Maybelline.

The star system was the method of creating, promoting and exploiting movie stars in Classical Hollywood cinema.

MGM was one of the most powerful and most prestigious of all the major motion picture studios.

Studios would select promising young actresses and glamorise and create personas for them, often inventing new names and even new backgrounds.

Louis B. Mayer, the most powerful , highest paid man in Hollywood, created the Hollywood myth, "that anything is possible, regardless of class or money."  He didn't want real life scandals to tarnish that dream, and diminish his audiences. 

The star system put an emphasis on the image rather than the acting. Women were expected to behave like ladies, and were never to leave the house without makeup and stylish clothes.

Part of creating the ideal image of emerging stars, was to promote them in Maybelline ads,

Jean Harlow on the cover of Picture Play, would also appear in a Maybelline ad inside the magazine.

Tom Lyle Williams kept his private life hidden from public scrutiny, to protect Maybelline's image.  However, he was as big, if not bigger, than any Hollywood Studio head and like Louis B. Mayer,  created Super Stars, by  grooming and promoting them in Maybelline advertisements.  

Jean Harlow, illustrated in a Maybelline ad, appeared in all the popular gossip, Hollywood movie magazines, in the early 1930s.

Beautiful On His Own Terms: Maybelline Started In Chicago By LGBT Pioneer

 

By Linze Rice | m

@linzerice

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Maybelline Origins

EDGEWATER — New information offers to answer the age-old question: Was she born with it, or was it Maybelline?

As it turns out, the namesake of Maybelline makeup was indeed born with eyelashes and eyebrows — until she bleached them to the point of oblivion. 

The woman for whom the famous makeup brand is named, Edgewater resident Mabel Williams, accidentally over-bleached her lashes and brows one day, forcing her to make due with what she had: Vaseline and coal powder.

Her brother, Tom Lyle Williams, discovered his sister applying the concoction to her face in a way he'd only known Hollywood's most dazzling starlets to do.

Two years later, a cosmetics empire was born.

That's according to Sharrie Williams, the great-niece of Maybelline's founder Tom Lyle Williams and author of "The Maybelline Story And The Family Dynasty Behind It."

The author said there have been several versions of the brand's story circulated over the years, but Mabel's own daughter recently confirmed it was a serendipitous over-bleaching that led to the brand's invention.

The three-story building at 5900 N. Ridge Ave. that housed the company's headquarters for more than 50 years is still emblazoned with a cursive "M" above a street-facing entry. 

But Maybelline's Chicago roots, and Tom Williams' legacy as a pioneering — and fearfully closeted — gay entrepreneur have mostly been forgotten. 

With the help of Williams' book and a new exhibit featuring Maybelline's early days at the Edgewater Historical Society, the true story of her great-uncle and the family's history now is emerging.

Interest has piqued so much that Williams is also in talks with Sony Entertainment over a potential television series on Tom Williams' life, she said.

"It's just beginning to get a little bit of an understanding of who he was," she said. "He really wanted to stay hidden because of the shame that was put on him, and he didn't want it to reflect on the family."

"Only after he died, really, could his story be told."

Tom Lyle Williams and his sister Mabel, for whom the business was eventually named and who served as Tom's original inspiration. [Provided/Sharrie Williams]

'The most handsome man' and his makeup

After seeing his sister coloring in her brows and lashes after the accident, Tom Williams asked if there were any beauty products on the market that could perform the same function. 

Though skin creams, rouge and lipstick were all big sellers, eye makeup had to that point largely been ignored, he learned. 

With a friend and a chemistry set, in 1915 Williams created his first product: Lash-Brow-Ine.

Williams was sued for the Lash-Brow-Ine name and its likeness to similar products. In 1917, he changed the name to Maybelline, after his sister.

For a time his budding business was headquartered at 4750 N. Sheridan Road in Uptown, but it moved to 5900 N. Ridge Ave., where Williams developed the distinct black makeup "cakes" that would put him on the map.

Chicago in the 1910s and roaring 1920s was the perfect place and time to launch a business that made Hollywood's exuberance and glamour seem accessible to everyday women.

It also made it easier for Tom Williams, an eccentric man and sharp dresser who flaunted his money with custom cars, fabulous clothing and his own makeup, to be himself to some extent, his great-niece said. 

In a larger world that did not yet understand LGBT people, jazzy Chicago was a safe place to fit in. 

"In the '20s, it was flamboyant in general, with the speakeasies and all the crime going on and the front pages, it was just a lot of drama," Williams said. Tom Williams "was kind of known for wearing his own makeup, hats and llama skin coats.

"My grandmother, when she first met him, said he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen."

An original Maybelline cake tin. [Provided/Sharrie Williams]

"Everyone had to be in the closet"

Tom Williams' family grappled with his relationship with beau Emery Shaver. 

While some were accepting, others staunchly denied any allegations the cosmetics founder was in a loving union with another man.

Williams said her family always knew her great-uncle was "different" but lacked the context and societal acceptance to fully understand or come to terms with his sexuality. 

When the Great Depression hit and the era of glitz and grandeur began to fade, the Williams family had a more difficult time blending in. 

In 1934, Tom Williams had a custom car like one he'd seen at the The Chicago World's Fair delivered to Maybelline's Edgewater offices, infuriating the people starving and scrounging around them. 

Tom's flamboyancy in attire and attitude also put a target on his back during a time when the government was conducting nationwide "witch hunts" to keep gay men from influencing the public, in particular women, his great-niece said.

Tom Williams suddenly found himself in a dangerous place.

"There were not designers like there are today that were gay and out in the '20s and '30s — it just wasn't done," Williams said.

Eventually, he and Shaver picked up and headed West to California, where Tom Williams bought Rudolph Valentino's former home in Hollywood Hills.

There, among the Hollywood types he aspired to rub elbows with, Tom Williams could be with his love and had beautiful women to hide behind.

Iconic actresses like Betty Grable and Viola Dana became the faces of Maybelline. In a signed photo, Joan Crawford said it was the eye makeup she "would never be without."

Like countless other LGBT pioneers throughout history, Tom Williams is virtually unknown despite founding one of the world's most famous makeup brands.

"It's a story you don't hear about because everyone had to be in the closet," said Andrew Clayman, creator of the Made in Chicago Museum that contains original Maybelline products. "So the LGBT community doesn't really have these pioneers of industry, when really they were there, probably in the same percentage as anybody else."

Tom Lyle Williams and Emery Shaver in front of their Hollywood home. [Provided/Sharrie Williams]

"When everything exploded"

In 1964 Shaver died and Tom Williams soon after sold the company to Plough Inc., a pharmaceutical company.

"That's when everything exploded," Williams said.

Despite a promise to keep the company in Chicago and to retain its workers, Plough moved Maybelline to Little Rock, Ark., where for the remainder of Tom Williams' life he watched his company swell into a beauty conglomerate. 

Old, alone and unwell, he also looked on in dismay as his family lavishly spent money from the makeup empire as he watched it transform from the company he built, Williams said. 

In retrospect, he regretted selling it and wished he had groomed another family member to be his successor.

"He was very sad seeing the way Plough was changing everything," his great-niece said. 

Tom Williams died in 1976 at age 80.

Today the company is owned by L'Oreal and known as "Maybelline New York" — "almost as if to spite Chicago," Clayman said.

Maybelline now tells a very different origin story. According to Maybelline today, Tom Williams' sister, spelled "Maybel," had been "in love with a man who was in love with someone else" and trying different beauty regiments to lure him.

"The rest is history," the company writes. 

And under Williams' tenure, history was indeed made: Maybelline was the first cosmetics brand to plug advertisements over radio, offer before and after photos in ads, utilize the faces of movie stars to drum up publicity and use someone other than the founder's name.

Thanks to the younger Williams' book and supplemental research from Clayman, that story is now being told.

"It's a part of American history, and it's just been brushed under the rug," Williams said.

The Maybelline building in 1932 [Sharrie Williams]The Maybelline building today [Sharrie Williams]An "M" is still engraved above the Ridge Avenue door frame. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]The former Maybelline building at 5900 N. Ridge Ave. in Edgewater [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]

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Maybelline Origins

The Maybelline building today [Sharrie Williams]An "M" is still engraved above the Ridge Avenue door frame. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]The former Maybelline building at 5900 N. Ridge Ave. in Edgewater [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]