Elizabeth Arden

(1878-1966) pseudonym of Florence Nightingale Graham. Born in Canada, she moved to New York and went to work for a pharmaceutical company, which she left not long after, attracted by the cosmetics industry. In 1910, she adopted the “stage” name Elizabeth Arden and opened her first salon on Fifth Avenue. It was an exclusive beauty shop which offered its high society New York clientele treatments and massages for the body and face. The “total beauty” concept, followed from the beginning, would bring her good luck. Gifted with great intuition, in 1912 she developed a series of colored powders, a sort of precursor to blush. A few years later, returning from Europe, she introduced the first eye make-up in the American market, and a light non-oil face cream, called Venetian Cream Amoretta, that was revolutionary for its time. In 1915, with the launch of Arden Skin Tonic, she began to brand her products with her own name. It was a winning intuition which anticipated the age of beauty marketing and allowed her, along with other initiatives (see the creation of the first American joint stock company and cosmetics in small sizes suitable for travel), to build an empire. By the year of her death, the Elizabeth Arden group consisted of 17 companies and 40 beauty salons throughout the world. Thanks to constant investment in the field of research and image, the group today represents a classic of the avant-guard.
Unilever sells the brand to the U.S. group FFI Fragrances for about $240 million, with $190 million in cash and $50 million in stock. Unilever had acquired Arden in 1989.
FFI changes the group’s corporate name to Elizabeth Arden Inc. The company employs 1,300 people and sells beauty products in more than 40,000 shops in the U.S. and 90 other countries.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is featured in the Elizabeth Arden advertising campaign, which wins the Fifi Award, a prize given each year by the German Fragrance Producers Association to the best launch of a new line.