• Drug Store News, Brand Republic, Friday, June 5, 2009 10:45 AM

Max Factor is the leading cosmetics brand in more than 20 countries and the No. 2 cosmetics brand in key markets like the U.K. and Russia, and that is where it will spend its future days, Antoinette Alexander reports. Procter & Gamble will stop selling the brand in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2010.

"This is the right decision to further strengthen our cosmetics business because it allows us to focus our U.S. resources on continuing to growth [sic] the No. 1 brand in the region, CoverGirl," says Virginia Drosos, president of Global Female Beauty at P&G. (It looks like P&G also continues its commitment to growth the line extension of nouns into verbs.)

Brand Republic points out that the company was founded in Russia by Maximilian Faktorowicz (Max Factor), a Polish-Jewish makeup artist for the Russian royal ballet who was prominent in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s and coined the term "makeup," based on the verb, "to make up" (one's face). P&G bought the brand from Revlon for $1.5 billion in 1991.

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