"If anyone wants to understand the fate of France in the 20th century, this is the book to read." --Arthur Herman, historian and bestselling author of How the Scots Invented the Modern World. In 1906, Fran�ois Coty became a multimillionaire within two years of creating his first perfume, the legendary La Rose Jacqueminot. In the 30 years he ruled his perfume and cosmetics kingdom, Coty became France's first billionaire, acquiring unimaginable wealth during the most devastating war in the history of Europe, World War I. Born in Corsica next door to the home where his idol and distant relative Napoleon Bonaparte was born, Coty, with his unshakable charisma, ingenuity, and of course, his incredibly sensitive "nose," revolutionized the world's fragrance and cosmetics industry. Now, for the first time, comes this stunning biography of France's fragrance king, the incredible story of the ambitions, loves, losses, and triumphs of one of the 20th century's most famed yet enigmatic entrepreneurial geniuses.

The global beauty business permeates our lives, influencing how we perceive ourselves and what it is to be beautiful. The brands and firms which have shaped this industry, such as Avon, Coty, Estée Lauder, L'Oréal, and Shiseido, have imagined beauty for us. This book provides the first authoritative history of the global beauty industry from its emergence in the nineteenth century to the present day, exploring how today's global giants grew. It shows how successive generations of entrepreneurs built brands which shaped perceptions of beauty, and the business organizations needed to market them. They democratized access to beauty products, once the privilege of elites, but they also defined the gender and ethnic borders of beauty, and its association with a handful of cities, notably Paris and later New York. The result was a homogenization of beauty ideals throughout the world. Today globalization is changing the beauty industry again; its impact can be seen in a range of competing strategies. Global brands have swept into China, Russia, and India, but at the same time, these brands are having to respond to a far greater diversity of cultures and lifestyles as new markets are opened up worldwide. In the twenty first century, beauty is again being re-imagined anew.