[citation needed] She was born Florence Nightingale Graham on her family's farm in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada.

Her father, William Graham, was Scottish; her mother, Susan (née Tadd), was Cornish and had arranged for a wealthy aunt in Cornwall to pay for her children's education.

[3] After dropping out of nursing school in Toronto,[4] she joined her elder brother in Manhattan, working briefly as a bookkeeper for the E. R. Squibb pharmaceutical company.

It is a popular fiction that she supplied the marchers with red lipstick as a sign of solidarity,[5][6] but there is little contemporary evidence supporting this.

Even as late as 1920 Arden herself was dismissive of "powder and rouge ... so obvious in their artifice that their use was considered in questionable taste".

[citation needed] In 1962, the French government awarded Arden the Légion d'Honneur, in recognition of her contribution to the cosmetics industry.

After a successful tryout at Chicago's Goodman Theater, the show opened on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre on April 6, 2017, earning four Tony Award nominations, including Best Actress in a Leading Role for Christine Ebersole's portrayal of Arden, as well as for Patti Lupone for her role as Rubinstein.

[15] The comedy Lip Service by the Australian dramatist John Misto chronicles the life and career of Helena Rubinstein and her rivalry with Elizabeth Arden and Revlon.

Elizabeth Arden, as student nurse Florence Nightingale Graham, appeared in an episode of the CBC period drama Murdoch Mysteries (October 1, 2018), portrayed by Kathryn Alexandre.