the
lab, but proved useless in the salon, on live hair still attached to a sensitive
human scalp. He had therefore to begin all over again. But by 1907 he had his
formula; all that remained was to sell it.
How he summoned up the courage to go out and find
clients he could never afterwards imagine. He was by nature rather shy, and a
very bad salesman. But the product was excellent, and he soon got to know
Paris’s fifty top hairdressers, who formed a respectable core of clients. He
made his products at night, took orders in the morning, and delivered in the
afternoons. By 1909, he had the satisfaction, “which I think I deserved,” of
making a small profit. There were no margins. If he didn’t sell, he didn’t eat.
Every bill, whether for raw materials or household necessities, was a nightmare.
Nevertheless, L’Oréal was a going concern. On the strength of it he allowed
himself to get married, and Mlle. Berthe Doncieux, whom everyone called Betsy,
and of whom we know little save that she was musical and liked to play the piano
and sing, 11 came to share his storage-room
bed.
III
In every town, there will be shops where the scalp
will simply be massaged with lotions, each more wonderful than the last—liquids
that will prevent hair from turning white in the first place.
—E UGÈNE S CHUELLER , Coiffure de
Paris , 1909
A lthough
Eugène Schueller’s public career is amply documented, the private man remains
elusive. He makes a few cameo appearances in other people’s memoirs. He gave two
short accounts of his life, one in 1948, when he was tried for collaborating
with the Germans, another in 1954, to Merry Bromberger. He produced a few
treatises on politics and economics, and a good many articles and speeches. But
in most of these writings he had one if not both eyes on his own or his
country’s future. He always remained committed to L’Oréal, but as the 1930s
progressed it became more and more the means to an end—an inexhaustible source
of money that would allow him to influence the economic and political scene.
There was little time for private life. The marital
bed crowded out by laboratory and office requirements was as much metaphor as
reality. And although later he surrounded himself with the trappings of
luxury—big houses, a Rolls-Royce, specially commissioned furniture—his lifestyle
remained ascetic. If you work, as he did, from five in the morning until nine at
night, there is little time left for anything else.
We can glimpse his progress in a magazine called Coiffure de Paris , whose first issue, in October
1909, declared that it was “distributed free to Wholesale Buyers and to
principal Practitioners in the Five Corners of the World.” A double-page
photo-spread of founders’ portraits showed a cluster of well-set-up gentlemen of
a certain age, with neat gray beards. In this portly and expansive company, E.
Schueller, listed as one of the magazine’s “independent corporate publicists,”
was noticeable for his youth and his abundant black, curly locks. Confined to
the bottom right-hand corner of the page, he was seemingly a sort of
afterthought. But this placement was deceptive. He was one of the magazine’s
moving spirits. A hairdresser of his acquaintance had started it at the
suggestion of a journalist, and co-opted Schueller because of his experience
editing the Grande Revue Scientifique . Always
publicity-hungry, he saw in it an excellent potential vehicle for his
advertisements: L’Oréal occupied the whole of the back page, the space purchased
at a cheap contributor’s rate. Before long, in a foretaste of events to come, he
had taken the magazine over entirely and become its proprietor, editor, manager,
and publicist.
Coiffure de Paris , when
it began, was largely about the now lost world of the postiche, the false hair
piece every fashionable woman needed to achieve the bouffant hairstyles then in
vogue (such as the one called “L’Auréole,” the original inspiration
lab, but proved useless in the salon, on live hair still attached to a sensitive
human scalp. He had therefore to begin all over again. But by 1907 he had his
formula; all that remained was to sell it.
How he summoned up the courage to go out and find
clients he could never afterwards imagine. He was by nature rather shy, and a
very bad salesman. But the product was excellent, and he soon got to know
Paris’s fifty top hairdressers, who formed a respectable core of clients. He
made his products at night, took orders in the morning, and delivered in the
afternoons. By 1909, he had the satisfaction, “which I think I deserved,” of
making a small profit. There were no margins. If he didn’t sell, he didn’t eat.
Every bill, whether for raw materials or household necessities, was a nightmare.
Nevertheless, L’Oréal was a going concern. On the strength of it he allowed
himself to get married, and Mlle. Berthe Doncieux, whom everyone called Betsy,
and of whom we know little save that she was musical and liked to play the piano
and sing, 11 came to share his storage-room
bed.
III
In every town, there will be shops where the scalp
will simply be massaged with lotions, each more wonderful than the last—liquids
that will prevent hair from turning white in the first place.
—E UGÈNE S CHUELLER , Coiffure de
Paris , 1909
A lthough
Eugène Schueller’s public career is amply documented, the private man remains
elusive. He makes a few cameo appearances in other people’s memoirs. He gave two
short accounts of his life, one in 1948, when he was tried for collaborating
with the Germans, another in 1954, to Merry Bromberger. He produced a few
treatises on politics and economics, and a good many articles and speeches. But
in most of these writings he had one if not both eyes on his own or his
country’s future. He always remained committed to L’Oréal, but as the 1930s
progressed it became more and more the means to an end—an inexhaustible source
of money that would allow him to influence the economic and political scene.
There was little time for private life. The marital
bed crowded out by laboratory and office requirements was as much metaphor as
reality. And although later he surrounded himself with the trappings of
luxury—big houses, a Rolls-Royce, specially commissioned furniture—his lifestyle
remained ascetic. If you work, as he did, from five in the morning until nine at
night, there is little time left for anything else.
We can glimpse his progress in a magazine called Coiffure de Paris , whose first issue, in October
1909, declared that it was “distributed free to Wholesale Buyers and to
principal Practitioners in the Five Corners of the World.” A double-page
photo-spread of founders’ portraits showed a cluster of well-set-up gentlemen of
a certain age, with neat gray beards. In this portly and expansive company, E.
Schueller, listed as one of the magazine’s “independent corporate publicists,”
was noticeable for his youth and his abundant black, curly locks. Confined to
the bottom right-hand corner of the page, he was seemingly a sort of
afterthought. But this placement was deceptive. He was one of the magazine’s
moving spirits. A hairdresser of his acquaintance had started it at the
suggestion of a journalist, and co-opted Schueller because of his experience
editing the Grande Revue Scientifique . Always
publicity-hungry, he saw in it an excellent potential vehicle for his
advertisements: L’Oréal occupied the whole of the back page, the space purchased
at a cheap contributor’s rate. Before long, in a foretaste of events to come, he
had taken the magazine over entirely and become its proprietor, editor, manager,
and publicist.
Coiffure de Paris , when
it began, was largely about the now lost world of the postiche, the false hair
piece every fashionable woman needed to achieve the bouffant hairstyles then in
vogue (such as the one called “L’Auréole,” the original inspiration
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