Harriet Hubbard Ayer, Honeysuckle Bath Powder, 12 oz., 1950, Paris, France ..

Harriet Hubbard Ayer was a Chicago socialite. She was born in 1850 in Chicago. She became famous for having initiated the first cosmetic company in the United States and for fighting to maintain her business against male predators. She set the stage for later female cosmetic moguls.

After some personal difficulties, Ayer was able to reinvent herself during the last seven years of her life as the highest paid newspaper woman in the United States. She was highly regarded as the author of articles about beauty, health, and etiquette for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. Her essays were compiled into a popular book in 1899 that was reissued in 1974 and more recently in an abbreviated format in 2005.

Ayer was a proto-feminist, and her articles influenced women across the United States and abroad. While Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden, Hazel Bishop, and Estee Lauder are held in high regard as early women entrepreneurs in the cosmetics field, Harriet Hubbard Ayer was one of the first to have a successful career in the beauty industry.

Her business was stablished as Harriet Hubbard Ayer at East 34th Street, New York in 1886. She was renowned for her HHA label which she created in 1886, and she launched her first perfume in 1922. She also produced a variety of beautiful toiletries and cosmetics.

She was a beautiful and remarkable woman, who would today be described as "emancipated" in the positive sense of the term. Extremely unusual for those days, she led an outspoken, active life, which encompassed journalism, social criticism and the bastion of female beauty.

While she was visiting France, she came across the rare recipe for ‘Récamier Cream’. Shortly afterwards she founded her cosmetic company and sold 'Récamier Cream' in America and in many countries across Europe. Her ideas and her activities were so sensational that an entire range of cosmetics was developed from the basis of this cream. The Honeysuckle Powder is part of her cosmetic line.

Offered here is an absolutely pristine box of Honeysuckle Bath Powder. The box is clean and without blemish, though there is a tiny half inch tear in the paper that covers the powder. It has never been used and is utterly charming .. and it smells lovely!