Max Factor was born in Lodz, Russia, in 1877. At the age of 14 he became an apprentice to a wig maker. At 20, he was running his own makeup shop.

In 1904, Factor brought his family to America for the St, Louis World's Fair, and they never left. First, Factor opened a cosmetics shop in St. Louis, but the motion picture industry, then beginning in Hollywood, beckoned. Factor moved to California and got a job with the Pantages Theatre.

By 1914, he was perfecting makeup for the movies. He found that die grease paint used in the theatre looked dreadful on screen, so he improvised. He created false eyelashes, the eyebrow pencil, lip gloss, and pancake makeup. Of course, once they had been made to look so stylish on screen, actresses wanted to maintain that allure off camera, so they wore the makeup in personal appearances.

It was not long before non-actresses were asking for the makeup so that they too could look glamorous. It was in 1927 that Max Factor introduced his first cosmetics to be sold to non-theatrical consumers. Before Max Factor, few women used cosmetics. Factor popularized both the word "makeup" and the wearing of the stuff.