with her stories about Australia. In their wide-eyed gazes she could see their desire to flee to a life elsewhere, the same desire that she herself had once felt. From her bag she took some Valaze cream and lotion, and she covered their faces with cream and massaged their skin the way their mother used to, while she explained her beauty principles and everything she had learned over the past ten years.
For a few hours she enjoyed the illusion that she had returned to the girly camaraderie of her childhood. But the spell was quickly broken. She was bored, and fled as soon as she could, on the pretext that she had important meetings. She would never see her parents again. This largely unsuccessful visit confirmed her belief that she had been right to choose the hard way out, for it had proved infinitely preferable to any forced marriage.
And yet her family members were still dear to her. Her sisters, cousins, uncles, and aunts were the only people she could trust. She wanted to make them her business associates, and she swore to herself that she would do so as soon as she had the chance. Before her departure she persuaded her younger sister Ceska, who was twenty-two at the time, and her cousin Lola, the daughter of her aunt Rosalie Beckman, to come and give her a hand in Melbourne. To give them the time to prepare their belongings, she arranged to meet them in Vienna.
There, Helena made the acquaintance of Dr Emmie List, who was renowned for her peeling treatments to eliminate acne and persistent blemishes. After six months of regular exfoliation, scars faded and the skin looked youthful again. The doctor became Helena’s friend. When the time came for Helena to open her salon in London, she would have Dr List come and work with her.
Lola and Ceska joined her in Vienna. They took the train together to Germany, where surgeons were inventing new beauty techniques. In Berlin in 1901, Dr Eugene Hollander had been the first to perform a facelift on a Polish aristocrat. A few years later, Dr Jacques Joseph performed the first nose surgery. Of all these innovations the injection of paraffin into the face to make wrinkles disappear was the most spectacular.
But the consequences could also be disastrous, because when the paraffin moved beneath the skin it created undesirable hollows and lumps or even, on occasion, blindness or necrosis. Cosmetic surgery, which claimed to ‘remedy ugliness and deformity’, was still in its infancy.1 The results obtained did not meet people’s expectations. It was only after the First World War that surgeons would learn to repair the severe facial injuries suffered by soldiers in the trenches. For the time being, everyone agreed that these operations were bound to leave traces, and a new way would have to be found to reduce scarring.2
As they continued their journey, the three young women discovered spas. For Helena, they were a revelation. Her enthusiasm was so great that all through her life she would visit spas regularly to lose weight, rest, or treat a temporary depression, which often happened after she opened a new salon.
For European aristocrats, taking the waters was a rite of passage proving they had attained a certain social status. They would go to Brides-les-Bains or Eugénie-les-Bains, two hot thermal springs patronised by Napoléon III and his family. They also favoured Budapest, Baden-Baden and Marienbad, which became fashionable thanks to King Edward VII, who was a connoisseur of natural healing. Every spa had its own speciality and star physician who prescribed hydrotherapy, body wraps or chemical peels. ‘There were many Hungarians and Romanians who were very good at skincare, and they taught me a great deal,’ Helena would recall.3
In Wiesbaden, on the right bank of the Rhine, Helena befriended Dr Joseph Kapp, the director of the thermal baths, who prescribed a venous treatment for the circulatory ailments she was suffering from. She observed his methods with every intention of copying them. The physician became one of her role models. Whenever she needed to update her medical knowledge, Helena, whose thirst for knowledge would never wane, would turn to Dr Kapp.
In Paris, the belle époque was synonymous with an insatiable appetite for life. Helena fell instantly in love with Paris, and it would remain one of her favourite cities. During her short stay she did some frenetic shopping: vases by Gallé, flasks by Lalique, jewellery, clothing, her first paintings.
She was only too happy to spend the money she had rightfully earned, and ordered her first haute couture garments from Doucet and Worth on the Rue de la Paix. She appreciated the discreet comfort of the salons and fitting rooms, and the shop girls waltzing to and fro in a whirlwind of ribbons, lace, satin, and velvet. When her outfits were delivered to the hotel, she spread them out on the big bed: jackets and tight-waisted dresses with long, gored skirts. She would have liked to wear them all at once.
All her life, Helena would go to the great couturiers for her wardrobe, initially because she liked their work, and subsequently as part of her quest to be her own best brand ambassador. Anything Helena spent was good for Helena Rubinstein. Besides, as she often said, ‘couture and beauty go hand in hand’.
But she had not come all this way to be an idle tourist. In France, medicine and hygiene had evolved considerably. Since Pasteur’s discovery of microbiology in 1860, the use of aseptic techniques had become compulsory in hospitals. Helena began her series of visits to Marcellin Berthelot, who invented disinfection through the use of bleach in 1875. The chemist was already very old – he would die two years later – and agreed to see her without a reference.
He gave her a masterclass on the principles governing the health of the skin and Helena sounded him out about her theory that skin could be classified into several types, which would enable her to expand her range of products. She consulted dermatologists, who taught her how to regenerate tissue, make it firmer, and delay the appearance of wrinkles. She would learn how electrical techniques were being applied to skincare barely a quarter of a century after their invention.
Some physicians did not take her seriously. A woman’s place is in the home, they informed her. Why was she insisting on cluttering up her charming little head with complicated information that would be of no use to her?
Helena did not try to win them over. There were any number of well-known scholars who were only too eager to help her. But she had learned her lesson. To get what she wants, a pretty woman must never seem too smart. She wasn’t used to subtle manoeuvring – she tended to mow down obstacles like a tank – but she was prepared to do whatever was necessary to get her way.
She was convinced that body care was an essential part of beauty, and took a keen interest in massage techniques using rollers to knead the flesh, which were said to eliminate jowls, double chins, and fat. Some rollers used electric current to massage the face, body and breasts more efficiently than by hand.4 Healthy eating had not yet become the obsession of the century, but beauty-conscious women already knew how to improve their figures through treatments and diets that changed with the fashion and the season.
Helena’s attentive visits to Parisian salons also enabled her to observe the treatments that were similar to those offered in spas: hydrotherapy to invigorate and shape the body, a variety of electrical treatments, light therapy, gymnastics and massages.5 She would introduce these new treatments in her salon in Melbourne and subsequently in Europe and the United States, improving upon them as time went by. Where skincare was concerned, her imagination knew no bounds.
From everything she learned during her journey, she retained two or three significant ideas that would form the basis of her regimes. To increase the efficiency of her products and maintain a glowing complexion, it was vital to lead a healthy lifestyle, involving physical exercise, proper breathing techniques and a low-fat, low-toxin diet based on water, fruit juice and vegetables. Her future clients
