Maksymilian Faktorowicz (September 15, 1877 – August 30, 1938), also known as Max Factor Sr., was a Polish-American businessman, beautician, entrepreneur and inventor. As a founder of the cosmetics giant Max Factor & Company, he largely developed the modern cosmetics industry in the United States and popularized the term "make-up" in noun form based on the verb. He is also known for doing makeovers for starlets and giving them their signature looks; his most iconic works include Jean Harlow's platinum hair, Clara Bow's bob, Lucille Ball's false lashes and red curls, and Joan Crawford's "Hunter's Bow", or overdrawn lips. Early life Factor, of Polish-Jewish descent, was born in Zduńska Wola to Abraham Faktorowicz (1850/52 before 1938) and Cecylia Wrocławska. His father, a hard-working grocer, rabbi, or textile mill worker (depending upon the source), could not afford a formal education for his four children. By the age of eight years, Factor was working as an assistant to a dentist and pharmacist. At the age of nine, he was apprenticed to a wig maker and cosmetician in Łódź, in central Poland. That experience enabled him to gain a position at Anton's of Berlin, a leading hairstylist and cosmetics creator. By the age of fourteen, he was working at Korpo, a Moscow wig maker and cosmetician to the Imperial Russian Grand Opera. He spent the years from age eighteen to twenty-two undertaking his compulsory military service in the Imperial Russian Army, where he served in the Hospital Corps. Upon his discharge, he opened his own shop in the town of Ryazan, selling hand-made rouges, creams, fragrances, and wigs. He became well known when a traveling theatrical troupe wore Factor's cosmetics to perform for Russian nobility. The Russian nobility appointed Factor the official cosmetics expert for the royal family and the Imperial Russian Grand Opera, an honor which led to him being closely monitored. He married Esther Rosa (whom he called Lizzie) and by early 1904 they had produced three children, Freda, Cecilia and Davis. By 1904, concerned about the increasing anti-Jewish persecution developing in the Russian Empire, he and his wife decided to follow his brother Nathan and uncle Fischel to America. Worried that he would not be released from his royal service, he arranged with the assistance of a friend to take a rest cure at Karlovy Vary - according to one version of his escape from the royal service. After meeting