Mr. Beauty: An Affair with the Beauty Industry

The beauty business is a multibillion-dollar industry where constantly evolving product innovation, celebrity endorsements, and market research compete for women's attention, loyalty, and money. Product and company success or failure depends on correctly reading what women want and providing it in a timely and attractive fashion. Robert Montagnese is a thirty-year veteran of the beauty industry. Dubbed "Mr. Beauty" by beauty magazine publishers, Montagnese devised a simple but groundbreaking means of engaging with the customers buying the beauty products promoted across all channels of media: he actually talked to the customers themselves. Signing up as an Avon sales representative at the company's East Harlem, New York, recruiting headquarters, Mr. Beauty set out with beauty pamphlets and samples in hand to discover how women feel about beauty care. What he discovers forms the basis of "Mr. Beauty." Montagnese interviews over one hundred women as they candidly discuss beauty brands, product innovation, celebrity value in marketing, and other topics of interest to anyone in the beauty industry. Rich in new insights into beauty care, "Mr. Beauty" is an entertaining, revealing, and sometimes shocking study on women's attitudes towards beauty-and an industry that survives by selling attraction.