Helena Rubinstein (c. 1870–1965), cosmetician, businesswoman and philanthropist, is the founder of one of the first international cosmetic companies. Rubinstein left her home in Kraków, Poland at age 22 and moved to Australia. When local women in Coleraine, Victoria admired her skin, she is said to have set about importing pots of face cream made by a chemist in Poland, later described as 'the celebrated Russian skin specialist Dr Lykuski'. She opened her first beauty salon in Melbourne in 1902, with her signature Crème Valaze, said to include rare herbs from the Carpathian Mountains, but probably comprising mostly lanolin sourced from local druggists Felton, Grimwade & Co. Her beauty cream was an overnight sensation. In late 1905 she established the Valaze Institute in Collins Street, offering various beauty treatments administered by her sisters and developing skincare and make-up. Having expanded to Sydney and Wellington, New Zealand, in 1908 Rubinstein departed with £100,000, to open modern salons in London and Paris. Fleeing wartime France, she opened in New York in 1916, becoming one of the first luxury beauty brands in the US; other stand-alone salons followed, and she established a presence in various department stores while retaining brand and marketing control. After the war, she returned to Paris, where she collected modern art, African and Oceanic sculpture and jewellery. In 1953 she established the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, which funded Tel Aviv’s Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, and also the Helena Rubinstein travelling art scholarship in Australia, which she last visited in 1957. The year before she died she published her memoir, My Life for Beauty. In 1973, the Helena Rubinstein brand was sold to Colgate-Palmolive, and is now owned by L’Oréal.
