Max Factor Biography

Max Factor travelled to the United Sates in 1902 and took his family to the St. Louis World’s Fair. They never returned. He began selling hair goods, imported cosmetics and stage greasepaints to local stage actors in St. Louis.

As his local fame spread, actors from the emerging film industry also came to Max for make-up advice. Thus, the motion picture industry, then beginning in Hollywood, beckoned. He settled in Los Angeles with his family in 1909 and got a job with the Pantages Theatre.

By 1914, he was perfecting makeup for the movies. He had improvised a new alternative to dye greasepaint, which he thought looked dreadful and ‘terrifying’ on the screen. He formed flexible greasepaint, which was the first make-up created for film. It helped make actresses look more natural in close up.

Creating false eyelashes, the eyebrow pencil, lip gloss, and pancake makeup, Factor created a whole new language for screen cosmetics.

Inevitably, once the actresses had been made to look so stylish on screen, they wanted to maintain the same effect in everyday life, so they wore the new Max Factor ‘makeup’ in personal appearances.

Soon, women unconnected with the theatre or the film industry were asking for the makeup, so that they too could look glamorous.

It was in 1927 that Max Factor introduced his first cosmetics to be sold to non-theatrical consumers.

Before Max Factor, few women used cosmetics. Factor popularized both the word "makeup" and the use (and abuse) of the cosmetic repertoire.

Credited as the father of modern make-up, Max Factor is responsible for inventing many key cosmetic products (for both on screen and off) and is still the inspiration behind beauty trends and innovations today.

He died on the 30th August 1938.