Elizabeth Arden

Elizabeth Arden

Elizabeth Arden was born at Hayle in 1884 the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Graham.   She was actually christened Florence Nightingale Graham. Her father was a Scotsman who made a living in Hayle as a Chemist. The family were  relatively affluent and she was brought up in considerable comfort and given a good education. In 1908 the Graham family left Cornwall in initially going to the USA and the later moving to Ontario. Canada.

Sensing a business opportunity, and with a loan from her brother, Florence went back to the USA and to New York, where she set up a business selling creams, lotions and powders. Soon after she opened her first beauty parlour on Fifth Avenue, which proved a great success and the rest as they say is History.

Florence changed her name to Elizabeth Arden and almost single-headedly invented the concept of cosmetics and beauty treatments and built a business empire that still bears her name to this day.