Wholesale perfumes – bargain prices

With a name like Florence Nightingale Graham, a Canadian who moved to work in New York as a bookkeeper in 1909, having dropped out of her nursing training … she seemed an unlikely candidate for creating a global perfume and skincare empire! By the end of 1930s, it was said that there were only three American brands that were known globally: Singer Sewing Machines, Coca Cola and Elizabeth Arden Perfumes. An amazing achievement, given that shipping was much more difficult then.

While doing some fairly low-level bookkeeping work at the Squibb Pharmaceuticals company in New York, she developed an interest in skin care and spent much of here free time in the company’s labs, studying the subject. It is believed she also worked part time as a ‘treatment girl’ for one of the early beauty care companies. This fired her imagination and she determined to make a career in this industry.

It probably took quite a bit of courage and not a little money to finance her trip to France in 1912. Being Canadian she did have the advantage of knowing the language, but the culture must have been very different to what she had been used to. Nonetheless she studied hard and as well as learning about beauty techniques she also picked up some useful tips on facial massage and face lotions.

On her return to New York she took a collection of face powders that she had created herself. At that time only stage entertainers routinely used makeup, so she really was a trailblazer in that area, introducing “makeovers” as part of the range of treatment offered in her very first beauty salon. Her really BIG early success came through collaboration with a chemist (Fabian Swanson) which resulted in a light almost ‘fluffy’ face cream. This was named Venetian Cream Amoretta and there was a matching lotion, Arden Skin Tonic too. Whether there was any chemistry between Arden and Swanson is not known – but the adoption of a repeatable formula with a scientific storyline was a considerable success and the two remained business partners for many years.

Further formulations were created, leveraging on the success of the first two products. The concept of different foundation creams to match different skin tones was developed – and expanded to include lipstick and fingernail products. So the first complete line of cosmetics was born – and promoted via adverts in movie theatres, a new concept at the time.

At the peak of her career, she had a salon in New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Maine, Arizona, Phoenix, Southhampton, Surfside, Florida, Palm Beach, Philadelphia, Honolulu, Lima. Toronto, Montreal, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, Johannesburg, London, Paris, Zurich, Vienna, Milan, Rome, Cannes, Madrid, Brussels, Copenhagen, The Hague, London, Ontario, Cape Town, Nassau, Tulsa, Quebec City, and Biarritz. She launched all of them personally and she owned all of them except the one in Paris, which she gave to her sister.

Sadly Elizabeth Arden seemed to believe her own stories about defying age, prolonging life and evading death. Despite being advised to do so, no useful tax planning strategies were introduced. Even at the age of 90 she resisted all advice to set up a Trust Fund. So when she died in 1966 her estate was heavily taxed and as a result many of her salons worldwide had to be closed down in order to pay taxes. Many of her personal assets had to be auctioned off by her family to meet these huge tax bills plus death duties. At the end of it all her net estate was only worth US $40 million, a small sum when you consider she thought nothing of spending US $10 million a year on her thoroughbred horses!

The Elizabeth Arden perfumes and cosmetics company continues to trade today, and was bought from Unilever in 2003 by FFI for $225 million. The company continues to offer its well known color coordinated make-up sets, as well as an extensive line of skin care products and treatments.

Following the death of Elizabeth Arden the company has to some extent shifted its focus for new products towards ladies perfumes. The company’s signature fragrance is called “Red Door” named after their day spas which are called “Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salons”.

Their other well known own brands are “Fifth Avenue”, “Green Tea”, “Provocative Woman” and their newest, “Mediterranean”. A number of licence agreements have been signed with celebrities and fragrances developed for Britney Spears, Elizabeth Taylor and Mariah Carey.

Elizabeth Arden perfumes are available in most US Department stores and some perfume outlets but in the wholesale perfumes sector they tend to be less commonly available.