[8] Frustrated when passed over for a promotion in favor of a man that she had trained, Ash retired in 1963 and intended to write a book to assist women in business.

[4] One month after George's death, with a $5,000 investment from her oldest son, Ben Rogers, Jr., Ash started Mary Kay Cosmetics.

[9] According to Gavenas: Both during her life and posthumously, Ash received numerous honors from business groups, including the Horatio Alger Award.

A long-time fundraiser for charities, she founded the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation in 1996[2] to raise money to combat domestic violence and cancers affecting women.

Her last acknowledgments while she was still alive were the "Equal Justice Award" from Legal Services of North Texas in 2001 and "Most Outstanding Woman in Business in the 20th Century" from Lifetime Television in 1999.

[11] At the time of Ash's death, Mary Kay Cosmetics had over 800,000 representatives in 37 countries, with total annual sales of over $200 million.

[12][13] Her first book, called Mary Kay on People Management, was published in 1984 and was on the New York Times Best Seller List.