Hazel Bishop

Hazel Gladys Bishop (17 August 1906 to 5 December 1998) was an American chemist, inventor and entrepreneur, and the founder of the cosmetics company Hazel Bishop, Inc. She invented the first long-lasting lipstick. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, she graduated from Barnard College in 1929 with a B.A. in chemistry, but the stock market crash ended her plans for graduate study at Columbia. From 1935 to 1942 she worked as a research assistant in a dermatological laboratory at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, then as an organic chemist for Standard Oil Development Company, designing aircraft fuels and finding the cause of deposits that affected superchargers, and from 1945 to 1950 at the Socony Vacuum Oil Company. She experimented on a long-wearing lipstick in her own kitchen, founded Hazel Bishop Inc. with Alfred Berg in 1948, and saw her No-Smear Lipstick reach stores in 1950; in 1951 she became the first woman to appear alone on the cover of Business Week.