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Ugly Beauty
by Ruth Brandon
McClelland & Stewart,
hardcover, 304 pages,
$34.99,
ISBN 978-0-7710-1730-8

Not so. When these companies came into being, Rubinstein traded in cosmetics, L’Oréal in hair coloring. Both were privately owned. On top of that Rubinstein and L’Oréal founder, Eugene Schueller, never met, and probably would not have cared a hoot about each other if they had. Only in 1988, decades after their deaths, did L’Oréal, now a company owned by shareholders, swallow the Rubinstein enterprise, and since then has absorbed many more well known cosmetic companies.

Still, Brandon's book has some merit by telling us about the lives of the two self-made individuals, one originally a Polish Jewess, the second a French Catholic, conservative-turned Nazi-collaborator. Both, in different ways, had a ruthless streak that allowed them to succeed "at any cost". While there are many far more detailed biographies in existence than Brandon's effort that tell Rubinstein's story, the real emphasis of her book centers on the founder of L’Oréal. He is an enigma to most readers. I know of no English language biography dedicated to Schueller. He is, however, mentioned in connection with the infamous right-wing La Cagoule in a book by Michael Bar-Zohar, Bitter Scent: The Case of L'Oréal, Nazis, and the Arab Boycott from 1996. But Schueller is only one of several shady characters, whom the French political and legal systems have protected from too much exposure of their past.

It can be said then that Brandon sets a premise in her book that is not supported by fact. Yet the sorry tale reveals much about how the beauty industry is intertwined; but by far, it tells us much more about politics and politicians in France, past and present.

Suffice it to say that Rubinstein turned out to be a very independent young woman who defied her father's wishes and left the Ghetto of Krakow for Vienna and then off to Australia. For a while she stayed with an uncle, but she soon tired of the Australian outback and ended up moving to Melbourne. There she began to sell creams, ostensibly those she had brought with her from Europe, but actually made by her, something she had learned from her mother. It took no time at all for the first shop to open because Australian women were eager for her wares. Then came trips to various European cities to briefly obtain more knowledge about skin and skin care. On returning, she found Australia too much of a backwater for her needs, besides she wanted to escape the attention of American journalist Edward Titus. But, there was no getting away. He ended as her first husband and father of her children. London, Paris, New York all became places where she put down some kind of roots and opened businesses, most run by six of her seven younger sisters.

Generally, she severed all connections to her Jewish roots, and even when such artists as Marc Chagall asked her for monetary aid to bring family members out of Germany during the Nazi era, she refused to do so. Only after one of her sisters died in a concentration camp did she pay more attention to her origins.

Rubinstein was a workaholic, loved expensive—though not necessarily tasteful—things, and used whatever means to advance herself and her business. That included inventing some of her own biographical background. She had no compunctions profiting from the Second World War, a point where she can be said to equal Schueller. The only thing is that the latter did not go for flashy possessions, and instead had a rather parsimonious side.

The Frenchman was a bigoted nationalist, who associated with the extreme right wing of French political society. He was a Vichy collaborator, yet also supported the underground movement. An astute businessman, he had some novel ideas and ideals about the relationship between employer and employees. And he did not hesitate after the war to employ convicted Nazi collaborators, one of whom he made head of his US branch. This man, Jacques Corrèze, however, had to leave The USA to avoid being deported.

Aside from the obvious misconceived premise that Brandon implies in her book of the relationship between Schueller and Rubinstein, she also makes an assumption about Schueller's now ageing daughter. She is Liliane Bettencourt, the third-richest woman in the world. Brandon claims that the reason for her never sitting on the board of directors of L'Oréal, of which she is the main shareholder, can be blamed on her father's belief that women belong in the home and not in the boardroom. Considering that Brandon spends part of each year living in France when not in England, it comes as a surprise she lays this only at Schueller's feet. French women, despite EU and French laws, lack the support of society to seek out the boardroom. French women did not get the right to vote until 1944, and while French laws now demand that women have equality in the workplace and wages, it is not practiced. It's known to many as the French 'paradox'. The country that claims Equality, Fraternity, Liberty as its motto does not really practice it when it comes to women despite laws. Still, old Papa Schueller very much believed that women belong in the home and not the office, and certainly not in the boardroom. So, as in many other European countries, French fathers look for sons-in-law who can take their place in their business when they retire. Heaven forbid that a daughter is capable of taken on the task.