All day long she looked after her clientele on her own. In the evening, once she had written down the day’s takings and expenses in a large ledger she had bought for that purpose, she answered her correspondence. In her letters she begged her future customers to be patient, because the cream would take ‘eight weeks to arrive by boat’. More than anything, she wanted to maintain the legend that justified the high cost of the product: ‘due to transportation and customs fees’. Besides, ‘Carpathian pine’ or ‘essence of Hungarian rose’ sounded more likely to inspire her customers’ dreams than lanolin from Victorian sheep or water lilies from Queensland. This gave her a considerable advantage over the competition.
Helena offered to reimburse any clients who did not want to wait. Only one asked for her money back. The others agreed to be patient until the orders could be filled. But the problem remained: the task was a superhuman one, even for a force of nature like Helena. She didn’t know how she would manage all on her own.
Many times she drifted off to sleep at her worktable in the early hours. When she awoke, the sun was already high in the sky and she just barely had time to wash and change and drink a quick cup of tea. The first clients were knocking on the door. Things couldn’t go on this way. She really needed help this time. So she picked up her pen and a sheet of her new letterhead writing paper.
‘Dear Dr Lykusky, Did you know that everyone is crazy about your cream in Australia? Women are fighting over it and I’m having trouble keeping up with the supplies. Would you like to come and work with me? I will draw up a contract in due form for you to sign, and I will buy your formula from you legally. I beg you, please accept, you won’t regret it. I will send you the cost of your fare. Sincerely yours, et cetera.’
Three months later, Jacob Lykusky disembarked in Melbourne, but only for a short stay, as he had stipulated in his reply. Helena had said yes to his every request. Let him come, and then she’d see. Following Eugenia Stone’s example, the journalists who came all published articles full of praise. Together with the advertisements in the newspapers these articles had a considerable impact on her clients. Now Helena could inform her followers that Dr Jacob Lykusky, a renowned Polish physician, was coming to give her a hand. This attracted a new category of women who were impressed by this scientific seal of approval.
Helena knew she needed staff, but she did not have the means to pay them, so she got in the habit of putting the men who asked her out to work. There were a number of newcomers to her usual group of admirers. Such a pretty young woman, all alone in Melbourne: they flocked around her like bees to honey.
When they came into the salon, one after the other, turning their hats in their damp hands, their hearts beating wildly with hope, they were sorely disappointed. Helena was far too busy experimenting with her concoctions in her ‘kitchen’ to drop everything and go out with them to the theatre or a concert. She would flutter her eyelashes and coquettishly say: ‘John, you have such lovely handwriting, will you answer my mail for me? And you, Robert, with your broad shoulders, could you carry these boxes upstairs? Oh, and when you’ve finished, don’t run off … there are some more in the courtyard … and in the shed …’
‘And me, Miss Helena?’
She gave a sceptical look at the young man’s skinny biceps and scrawny thighs, then she shook her head while her face lit up with a malicious smile.
‘With your ready tongue, my dear, I’m sure you would do an excellent job of sticking on labels.’
That was how they spent their Sunday afternoons. There were rarely any young men brave enough to come back. Too busy to think about flirting, Helena did not even notice.
She eventually finished filling the first batch of orders. Lykusky helped her to reformulate the cream, which she had registered under the name Valaze. He also helped her to expand their range of products: together they manufactured a soap, an astringent lotion, and a cleansing cream. She launched a beauty ritual for which her clients paid top dollar. At the salon, she combined her know-how with the mix of gentleness and authority she had shown her sisters throughout her youth in Kraków.
‘Above all, you must cover your whole face with the cleansing cream,’ she explained, demonstrating as she spoke. ‘It must penetrate every pore in your skin to dissolve the dirt accumulated during the day. Then you must use the astringent lotion to remove the residue. Just look at this towel! It’s disgusting.’
Melbourne was not yet polluted by automobile exhaust fumes, but a day spent in town could leave one’s skin horribly dirty. The fine white towel had turned completely grey. The clients were dismayed.
‘Wait,’ continued Helena, about to deal the killing blow. ‘Now we have reached the third stage. You must apply Valaze cream to moisturise, protect and whiten your skin. I’ll massage it slowly in order to allow the active ingredients to penetrate. You’ll see, it’s a real miracle.’
Above all, it was an economic miracle.
Her clients told their friends and sent them to the salon, or returned with them. Everyone bought cream. Astringent lotion as well, at the price of ten shillings and threepence. Prices had gone up yet again because of the ‘customs duties’.
The money was pouring in.
After several months had gone by, Helena had a tidy sum sitting in her bank account. The cardboard box under her bed was a thing of the past. She paid back her debts, hired and trained a saleswoman and invested half of her earnings in advertising. From Melbourne to Brisbane, from Sydney to Perth, from Adelaide to Hobart, Helena’s name was everywhere. Advertisements continued to sing the praises of the famous Dr Lykusky, the properties of Valaze cream, and its composition and origin, but Helena always made sure to include the address of her Salon de Beauté on Collins Street, because she also accepted mail order purchases.
Helena wrote her Beauty in the Making handbook, which explained both the skincare ritual and the properties of the cream, and had hundreds of copies printed. Clients could write to request a copy, including in their letter the coupon from the bottom of the advertisement. Helena also made the guide available at her salon.
For years, the text hardly differed, even though the language became more and more sophisticated. ‘Explain everything clearly then add some blah blah,’ she often said.3 She was no fool. At a later point, she would ask actresses to endorse her products. Nellie Stewart, one of the biggest theatre stars in Australia, was playing in Melbourne for a few months. After the success of her play Sweet Nell of Old Drury everyone was talking about her, and spectators had memorised her most famous lines. It would not be long before she heard about Helena.
On first returning to her native country, the actress drove for miles in an open car without any thought of protecting herself from the sun. Her skin dried out and ugly spots covered her nose and cheeks.
Helena gave her diagnosis after examining her: ‘My dear, you will recover your natural complexion. Do as I tell you, and don’t leave anything out.’
Nellie kissed her as if they were the best of friends, which they did eventually become. Nellie Stewart agreed to be the first spokesperson for Valaze. ‘It is the most marvellous blend I’ve ever used,’ she declared on the advertising panels.
It is possible that Helena heard about the way in which Sarah Bernhardt had become a spokesperson for creams, soaps, perfumes and lotions when she stayed in New York in 1880.4 Or perhaps she had come up with the strategy on her own. In any case, Helena had grasped the importance of using celebrities to endorse her products, and she would often turn to them in the future, since influential women, actresses, and socialites all became her icons.
Nellie