They could have been allies: two self-made millionaires who invented a global industry, in an era when wife and mother were supposed to be the highest goals for their sex. Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein each founded empires built on grit and determination...and yet they became locked in a feud spanning three continents, two world wars, and the Great Depression. Brought up in poverty, Canadian-born Elizabeth Arden changed popular opinion, persuading...

Helena Rubinstein was born into a poor Polish family at the end of the 19th century; by the time of her death in 1965 she had built a cosmetics empire that spanned the world. This is her amazing life story.