How did Maybelline get its name?

One of the world's biggest makeup brands is named after a woman and a jar of petroleum jelly.

The woman was Mabel Williams, who lived in Chicago in the 1910s. The family story is that she darkened her eyelashes and brows with a homemade mix of Vaseline and coal dust. One account, from the founder's grandniece Sharrie Williams, says a kitchen fire in 1915 had singed them. That version adds ash from burnt cork and says Mabel copied a trick she read about in Photoplay magazine.

Her younger brother, Tom Lyle Williams, saw a product in it. He made his own version and sold it by mail order through magazine ads. His first name for it was Lash-Brow-Ine. The American Oil & Gas Historical Society notes that the name alluded to its Vaseline content.

The firm traded as Maybell Laboratories, a play on Mabel's name. The same society says he trademarked Lash-Brow-Ine on 24 April 1917. It says the product was renamed Maybelline around 1920, and the company in 1923. Wikipedia and Snopes put the founding and naming at 1915, so the exact year is uncertain.

Snopes explains the new name as a blend: Mabel plus Vaseline, the product's base ingredient. Vaseline is itself a coined word. Etymonline traces it to German Wasser, "water," and Greek elaion, "oil," with a chemical-sounding -ine.

Why drop Lash-Brow-Ine? The usual answer is that Tom renamed it in his sister's honor. Cosmetics and Skin, a history of the beauty trade, finds a legal push too. In 1920 a court ruled the name too close to "Lashbrow," a rival St. Louis product, and the Lash-Brow-Ine trademark was invalidated. Family Business Magazine adds that a government crackdown on the ads' hair-growth claims forced a reformulation.

Wikipedia dates Maybelline Cake Mascara to 1917 and calls it the first modern eye cosmetic for everyday use. Given the later rename, the Maybelline name itself probably came a few years after the product. Tom sold the business to Plough Inc. in 1967, and L'Oréal bought it in 1996. That is when it moved to New York and became Maybelline New York.

The word mascara is older than the brand. Etymonline records it in English from 1883, from Spanish máscara, "a mask" or "a stain."