By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

Published in The New York Times: December 4, 2003
 

Blame Rene Russo.

If not for her, the B&P Company would still be comfortably slogging along, selling the same two products it has sold for more than a century: Frownies, the stick-'em-on nighttime facial pads that smooth forehead wrinkles and crow's feet; and Wrinkies, which do the same for deep lines around the mouth.

B&P long ago farmed out the manufacturing process to contractors, but family members took and shipped the orders.

Sometimes sales waxed, sometimes they waned, but three generations of women have eked out a respectable if not stellar income from the little company in Dayton, Ohio.

Margaret Wright, the 80-year-old chairwoman, saw no reason to change the modus operandi much, and Kathy Wright, her daughter-in-law, was perfectly happy splitting her time among teaching wellness classes, doing volunteer work and handling various soccer mom duties for her five children.

"I used the products, but I was having a ball, working with the kids' swim teams and such," Kathy Wright, 49, said.

That, of course, was before 2000, when Ms. Russo - albeit indirectly - smashed that idyllic life to smithereens.

The actress, who is often cast as a romantic lead, was quoted in Good Housekeeping as saying that she used Frownies to smooth out the crease in her forehead.

The 114-year-old product became an overnight success.

For more information, or to buy frownies, click here

"Frownies used to be a cult item, a secret that mothers passed on to their daughters," said Sophia Noyer, manager of cosmetics at Zitomer, a department store on Madison Avenue and 75th Street that has long sold Frownies. "Now socialites, actresses, a whole new segment of customers are giving the product a resurrection."

The impact on B&P has been huge. Before Ms. Russo's accolades, the B&P staff - basically, Margaret Wright and a couple of helpers - shipped about 225 boxes a week, tops.

About 100 went to the handful of stores that carried Frownies and Wrinkies, and maybe 125 went to individual customers who phoned in their orders. Sales in 2000 were about $200,000.

Then came Ms. Russo's endorsement. "Phone orders quadrupled; store orders doubled; sales reps were calling asking to handle our product lines; the business just exploded," Kathy Wright recalled. "Rene Russo couldn't have done more for us if we'd paid her."

(In fact, the company tried to hire Ms. Russo as a paid endorser; she refused. Ms. Russo could not be reached for this article, but her publicist said that she still used Frownies.)

Not surprisingly, Margaret Wright's gentle suggestions that her daughter-in-law take more interest in the family business quickly evolved into a cross between a fervent plea and a matriarchal demand.

So, while Margaret Wright retained the title of chairwoman, Kathy Wright became the full-time managing director in 2001.

Kathy has been in high gear since. She has hired a public relations firm, bought advertising in women's magazines, and expanded the company's cadre of sales representatives - not just here, but in South Korea, Japan and Britain as well.

One of her earliest executive decisions was to drop the Wrinkies name and take maximum advantage of the suddenly well-known Frownies brand.

She expects sales of Frownies alone to hit $1.5 million this year. She is also restoring a line of moisturizers that the company discontinued when the government put a luxury tax on them during World War II, and is adding cleansers and hydrating mists.

"I'll bet we sell at least 1,000 units of each of them by the end of this year," Kathy Wright said. She predicts that will lift the distribution of Frownies, too. "Stores are more likely to buy from companies with a fuller product line," she added.

In terms of demographics, her timing is perfect.

Most of the baby boomers are on the far side of 40, and many are seeking an elixir of youth. The rise of Botox, meanwhile, has lent credibility to the idea that facial furrows can be combated by plumping up muscles, not just hydrating skin.

Women who balk at spending thousands of dollars a year to inject toxins into their faces may be prime fodder for Frownies, which are just pieces of paper coated with a vegetable-based adhesive that when moistened adhere to the face and mechanically coax the muscles back into shape.

It helps, too, that the price for a package of 144 is only £17.50.

For more information, or to buy frownies, click here

Indeed, the decidedly low-tech product has not changed since 1889. That was when Margaret Kroesen (Margaret Wright's grandmother) invented Frownies to help her daughter Alice (Mrs. Wright's mother) combat unsightly lines.

The company, originally called Two Women, soon added basic rosewater and glycerin moisturizers to the product line.

When Mrs. Kroesen's husband died, she went to work for his former employer, a barber supply business called B&P.

The advent of the safety razor was beginning to wreak havoc with sales of the straight razors and shaving emollients that B&P carried. So, Mrs. Kroesen bought the company, kept its name but dropped its barbershop products, and devoted it solely to skin treatments.

She advertised a little bit, and benefited from a lot of high-profile publicity - the 1930's Hollywood makeup artist Perc Westmore talked up the product, for example, and Gloria Swanson wore Frownies in a scene in "Sunset Boulevard.''

"Every few months Perc would send a shoebox of inquiries to us, and business would spike up," Margaret Wright recalled.

Still, sales stayed flat at around $43,000 a year through most of the 1930's. "During the Depression, no one was buying much of anything, and we didn't have money to advertise," Margaret Wright said. Both she and Mrs. Kroesen refused to borrow money, and the company remains debt-free today.

By the time Mrs. Kroesen died in 1962, the business was healthy but still small. Margaret Wright spent a lot of time travelling with her husband, a computer ribbon salesman, and often enlisted her sons to fold up the product and take packages to the post office.

She has spent more time with the business since her husband died in 1996. But sales, which had jumped to about $50,000 in 1941, had still only quadrupled in almost 60 years. "The business just lost momentum," Kathy Wright said.

And then came Rene Russo, and the phones rang off the hook.

At one point B&P had 35 people working two shifts, just to handle the traffic. Its Web page handles orders and referrals to stores now, so the company is down to about five full-time employees.

Clearly, Kathy Wright is looking for big-time growth. She already is talking about developing body lotions, food supplements, a line of men's products, makeup, even a line of products aimed at the under-35 set.

"I don't see why we shouldn't double the business every year," she said. And if she does, would she consider selling it - or, at least, bringing in outside management?

Not a chance. For one thing, Margaret Wright would have a fit.

Even though she had three sons - one of them, Kathy's husband, James, has long handled B&P's accounting, and had once tried to persuade his mother to sell the company - she was adamant that Kathy take the corporate helm.

"Our family's women have always run it, and I want that to continue," she said.

So far, none of Kathy Wright's three daughters have expressed particular interest in the company, but then, her youngest is only in seventh grade.

And more imminently, Stephanie Smith, 21, who just married Kathy Wright's 23-year-old son Norman, has already signed on to do communications for B&P, and might just be an heir apparent.

If the company needs help before then, well, Kathy Wright feels amply covered on that front, too.