[6] Her stylish clothes and milky complexion did not pass unnoticed among the town's ladies, however, and she soon found enthusiastic buyers for the jars of beauty cream in her luggage.

There, she found an admirer willing to stump up the funds to launch her Crème Valaze, supposedly including herbs imported "from the Carpathian Mountains".

[This quote needs a citation] Sydney was next, and within five years, Australian operations were profitable enough to finance a Salon de Beauté Valaze in London.

Her business enterprise proved immensely successful and later in life, she used her enormous wealth to support charitable institutions in the fields of education, art, and health.

Rubinstein threw lavish dinner parties and became known for apocryphal quips, such as when an intoxicated French ambassador expressed vitriol toward Edith Sitwell and her brother Sacheverell: Vos ancêtres ont brûlé Jeanne d'Arc!

"[8] At the outbreak of World War I, she and Titus moved to New York City, where she opened a cosmetics salon in 1915, the forerunner of a chain throughout the country.

They were both keenly aware of effective marketing and luxurious packaging, the attraction of beauticians in neat uniforms, the value of celebrity endorsements, the perceived value of overpricing and the promotion of the pseudoscience of skincare.

She commissioned artist Salvador Dalí to design a powder compact as well a portrait of herself in 1943, titled Princess Arthchild Gourielle-Helena Rubinstein.

Eager for a regal title, Rubinstein pursued the handsome man avidly and named a male cosmetics line after her youthful prized catch.

[20] Rubinstein took a packed lunch to work and was frugal in many matters, but bought top-fashion clothing and valuable fine art and furniture.

[17] In 1953, she established the philanthropic Helena Rubinstein Foundation to provide funds to organizations specializing in health, medical research and rehabilitation.

Called "Madame" by her employees, she eschewed idle chatter, continued to be active in the corporation throughout her life, even from her sick bed, and staffed the company with her relatives.

"[23] A scholarly study of her exclusive beauty salons and how they blurred and influenced the conceptual boundaries at the time among fashion, art galleries, the domestic interior and versions of modernism is explored by Marie J.

[24] A feature-length documentary film, The Powder & the Glory (2009) by Ann Carol Grossman and Arnie Reisman, details the rivalry between Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden.

[9] In her book Ugly Beauty, Ruth Brandon described her methodology: She knew how to advertise—using 'fear copy with a bit of blah-blah'— and introduced the concept of 'problem' skin types.

She also pioneered the use of pseudo-science in marketing, donning a lab coat in many advertisements, despite the fact that her only training had been a two-month tour of European skin-care facilities.

The Helena Rubinstein Foundation, which had been established in 1953, operated through 2011, ultimately distributing nearly $130 million over the course of six decades, primarily to education, arts, and community-based organizations in New York City.

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