USA : Los Angeles
Max factor & film:
Los Angeles, California : The City of Angels. Most known for its role in the film industry starting in the early 1900s, Hollywood quickly gained reigning rule of TV and movies. With the help of legendary Max Factor, Hollywood’s film business would be evolutionary and everlasting.
Max Factor arrived to L.A. In 1904 from Europe, bringing with him his knowledge and expertise in film makeup. This revolutionized things and he then opened up his first beauty studio in 1908. Overtime Hollywood beauty ideals became mainstream America, everybody wanted to look like the famous actors and actresses they would see in the theater or on TV.
As everyday women began to glamorize adopting makeup into their daily life, Factor helped encourage this standardization by making makeup more publicly accessible, starting with his product line called ‘Color Harmony’-promoting the idea that your choice of color regarding your making should correlate with your hair color (which is now a large part in what we know as Color Theory).
Icons & influences:
Hollywood’s film and beauty industry was not slowing down anytime soon, in fact it was rapidly growing in popularity and influence even with celebrity makeup advertisements in magazines. Some of these original celebrity influencers include ‘original it-girl’, Clara Bow and now household name icons like Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly.
In the current age, Los Angeles is debatably the world’s capital for celebrities and influencers alike and as Hollywood evolved, so did it’s definition of beauty, shifting from the big screen to social feeds. Singers, movie stars, models, YouTubers, Instagram and TikTok influencers/ content creators. Examples of modern day names with a place in the beauty world and shaping beauty ideals are Jennifer Aniston, the Kardashians/ Jenners, Margot Robbie, Lady Gaga, Patrick Starr, Jackie Aina and so many many more.
Lifestyle & SUSTAINABILITY:
With the desire of striving to look like Hollywood’s biggest stars, L.A. developed a certain stereotypical ‘look’: Tan skin, physically fit, perhaps some form of plastic surgery. Things like organic and cruelty free food became a pillar in achieving ‘the looks and living the L.A. Lifestyle. This opened doors to being a hub for indie and natural beauty brands to gain footing and indulge in organic skincare ingredients, cruelty free resources and boutique formulations, such brands include Tower28, Kosas, Lawless Beauty, Ariana Grande’s R.E.M. Beauty and NYX Professional Makeup.
Los Angeles shows us that beauty is more than a polished façade-it’s a living, breathing culture of reinvention. From Max Factor and the golden-age glamour that shaped Hollywood’s earliest films, to today’s clean, cruelty-free innovators and influencer culture, the City of Angels proves that self-expression has no limits. In L.A., beauty is a reminder that trends may change, but the freedom to redefine yourself is timeless.
Los Angeles is just the first chapter in this journey, and I can’t wait to see where Beauty Without Borders take us next.