“The more adventurous had even tried ground brick dust mixed with Vaseline or lard to get a flesh-coloured look.” Faktorowicz had settled upon his mission. Basten writes his biography, Max Factor: The Man Who Changed the Faces of the World. “Some were using stage makeup, while others wore concoctions they had made themselves: odd mixtures of Vaseline and flour, lard and cornstarch, or cold cream and paprika,” Fred E. Soon afterwards he saw his first motion picture, and was fascinated and horrified in equal parts by the heavy greasepaint worn by its actors, which would crack and flake under the stress of facial expressions. The cosmetician's new role among the upper echelons of the Russian aristocracy, not to mention the continued training this afforded him, soon saw Factor upping his ambitions, and in 1904, troubled by anti-Jewish persecution in Russia, he moved his wife and children to America. His real break came when a travelling theatre group wore his products to perform for the Russian nobility, however he was swiftly appointed the official cosmetics expert for the royal family and its Imperial Russian Grand Opera – a tremendously prestigious position. At the age of eight he was set to work assisting a pharmacist, and the following year he was transferred to a local wigmaker and cosmetician in the city of Łódź, where he was trained in hairstyling and cosmetics – a foundation which, some years later, saw him open a store of his own in Razan, Russia, where he set about developing his own creams, fragrances, and wigs. Faktorowicz was born on September 15th 1872 in Congress Poland, one of ten children in a family so poor that he had scarcely reached the age of seven before he started selling oranges and peanuts in the lobby of his local cinema – an experience he would later credit as his first introduction to "the world of make-believe". Who? When a brand becomes inextricably woven into the fabric of popular consciousness, it’s easy to forget its humble beginnings – and this is never more true than in the case of Maksymilian Faktorowicz, the Jewish-Polish cosmetician otherwise known as Max Factor, who first introduced movie-grade makeup to the masses.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |