Maybelline

Maybelline is an American mass-market makeup brand founded in 1915 and owned since 1996 by the French cosmetics company L'Oréal [4]. Though it presents itself publicly as "Maybelline New York", the company began in Chicago, where Thomas Lyle Williams started selling an early eyelash darkener. Today it is headquartered in New York City and sells makeup across the eye, face and lip categories.

The brand operates as a fully active global business under L'Oréal ownership. According to the company, its products are available in 120 countries, and it describes itself as the number-one makeup brand worldwide. Its name and long-running advertising line — "Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline" — remain among the most recognisable in the cosmetics industry.

The company traces its origin to founder Thomas Lyle Williams, who observed his sister Mabel applying a mixture of Vaseline and coal dust to her eyelashes to make them look darker and fuller [4]. Williams adapted the formula using a chemistry set and first sold it locally as Lash-Brow-Ine. He later renamed the product Maybelline in his sister's honour — a contraction of "Mabel" and "Vaseline".

Sources place the company's founding in 1915 in Chicago, where it was first incorporated as The Maybelline Company [4]. Some editorial accounts cite 1913 as the inception or inspiration year rather than the formal founding; the 1915 date follows the company's Wikipedia record [4].

Two years after its founding, in 1917, the company launched Maybelline Cake Mascara, described as the first modern eye cosmetic for everyday use [4]. By the 1960s it had introduced Ultra Lash, characterised as the first mass-market automatic mascara.

In 1971 the brand launched Great Lash, its first water-based automatic mascara [5]. According to a 50th-anniversary feature in Coveteur, the water-based formula made it easier to remove than the wax-based mascaras then common, and the product became a long-running bestseller. Its pink-and-green tube, reportedly inspired by Lilly Pulitzer's colour palette, has remained a recognisable fixture of the makeup aisle for decades.

The advertising tagline "Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline" was introduced in 1991, replacing the earlier "Maybelline, Maybelline Ooh La La" line used through the 1980s [4].

Maybelline changed hands several times over the twentieth century. It was acquired by Plough Inc. — later part of Schering-Plough — in 1967, then by the investment firm Wasserstein Perella & Co. in 1990 [4]. In 1996 it was bought by L'Oréal, which has owned it since.

Within the L'Oréal group, Maybelline sits alongside sister brands including L'Oréal Paris, Lancôme, Kiehl's, Garnier, Vichy and Helena Rubinstein.

Maybelline frames itself as a New York City brand built around fast, high-performance makeup suited to city life. "We're from New York, and in this city you have to be ready for anything," the company states, describing its products as "no hassle, high-performance makeup." Its stated values centre on makeup "for every look, style, skin tone" and trend-led looks drawn from New York. The brand says its mission is "to give everyone the self-confidence to express their beauty, to play, to make change."

The brand's range spans eye, face and lip makeup. Its longest-running signature product is Great Lash mascara, alongside more recent lines such as Lash Sensational Sky High mascara, Fit Me Matte + Poreless foundation, Super Stay Vinyl Ink liquid lip colour and the Instant Age Rewind concealer.

Maybelline says all of its products undergo expert-led evaluation and testing through its research and innovation facilities.

Maybelline runs a sustainability programme called Conscious Together, organised around formulas, production, packaging and circularity. The company has set targets for 2030 that include sourcing 75 percent of ingredients from natural or recycled materials and making all packaging from at least 50 percent recycled or biobased materials [3]. It reports that 34 percent of ingredients were sourced from nature or recycled materials as of 2024, and that its product takeback programme had collected more than 140 tons of packaging across thousands of locations in several countries [3]. Certain products, such as the Lash Sensational Sky High waterproof mascara, are sold in bottles the company says are made from 100 percent recycled plastic.

Great Lash has drawn long-running press and consumer recognition. According to Coveteur, the mascara had won an Allure Readers' Choice Award for 20 consecutive years as of 2021, and an in-house study found that roughly 13 percent of social-media posts about the product referenced its "iconic" status [5].

A 2021 PETA report documented animal testing associated with the brand [4]. Maybelline has stated that animal testing is required by law in some countries in order to sell cosmetics there [4].

Maybelline has been a subsidiary of L'Oréal since 1996 [4]. The acquisition is a matter of ownership rather than dormancy: the brand remains highly active as a global mass-market makeup business, with current product launches and campaigns — including a Miley Cyrus collaboration — and distribution the company reports across 120 countries.