TOP 10 BEAUTY BRANDS 2012
Olay (launched 1950)
Avon (1886)
L'Oreal (1909)
Neutrogena (1930)
Nivea (1882)
Lancome (1935)
Dove (1957)
Estee Lauder (1946)
Biore (1981)
Shiseido (1872)
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| The original packaging |
Graham Gordon WULFF (12 March 1916 - 30 April 2008), an ex-Unilever chemist from Durban, saw his wife Dinah’s frustration with the thick, waxy beauty creams of the day which left her skin looking greasy. In 1949 he started working on a product in his home garage, and together with Dinah, fine-tuned it to the delicate pink shade that became Oil of Olay Beauty Fluid. Oil of Olay was chosen as a name as a spin on the word lanolin, a key ingredient. The first batch was mixed by hand. Graham found an advertising agency in the Yellow Pages, where he made contact with account executive Jack LOWE, who became his life-long friend and business partner. The two friends created a company, Adams National Industries (ANI), to produce and market Oil of Olay. They test the product on their wives and friends. Within five years, Olay was enjoying phenomenal success in South Africa. In 1959 the company expanded into England, the United States, the Netherlands, Canada and Germany.
In November 1970, ANI was sold to Richardson Merrell Inc., which later became Richardson-Vicks. RVI capitalized the "Oil" and added the sub-name "Beauty Fluid" to help protect the trade mark. They created TV advertising and extended the product range to include Night of Ulay and Beauty Cleanser, and expanded into more countries. In 1985, Procter & Gamble bought Richardson-Vicks and gained the Olay brand. In 2000, Procter & Gamble shortened the brand name to Olay. The formula had evolved over the years, and the original name no longer fitted with what women have come to expect from Olay —a light, grease-less formula that absorbs quickly into the skin. Olay was known as Oil of Olay in South Africa and North America, Oil of Ulay in the United Kingdom, Oil of Ulan in Australia, and Oil of Olaz in France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, prior to 2000.
The adverts never described it as a moisturizer, nor even as beauty fluid. Adverts used copy such as "Share the secret of a younger looking you" and talked about the "beauty secret" of Oil of Olay. Other adverts were written as personal messages to the reader from a fictitious advice columnist named Margaret Merril. They ran in Readers’ Digest and newspapers. In 1978 an English nurseryman named a rose after Margart Merill.
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| The Margaret Merrill Rose |
Oil of Olay was initially not sold to the trade, but to pharmacies who asked for it based on consumer requests. Today the brand has expanded into a range of other products. In 1999, Oil of Olay made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the biggest-selling skin care preparation in the world.
Graham was the son of George Jacob WULFF and Mary DRYDEN. His grandfather was Friedrich Henrich WULFF (died 1925 in the Orange Free State) and Agnes Minnie JOHNSTON. South African women first got voting rights in 1930. In 1931, Agnes Minnie WULFF is listed as a voter and living at 21 Sunnyside Road, Orchards, Johannesburg North. Graham's father died in 1921 in Natal, and he was raised by his mother Mary, along with two siblings (including a sister Audrey Phyllis Gordon, born 1911 in Durban), on a farm in Highlands North, Johannesburg. After Matric, Graham began working as a laboratory assistant at Modderfontein Dynamite Factory, where he developed a love for science and obtained his B.Sc. degree, which he did in three years by correspondence. He was promoted, and then moved to South African Pulp and Paper Industries. Later he joined the Industrial Development Corporation where he established plants at various wool washeries. In 1962 he was living at 17 Gainsborough Drive, Durban. At time of his death, he lived at 44 Devonshine Avenue, Howick. He was a pilot and enjoyed golf, sailing and ice hockey. He was also the president of Aero Club of SA, chairman of the Durban Wings Club and chairman of the Beachwood Golf Club. Graham was survived by his wife Dinah, six children (Graham, Don, Garth, Teri, Sal and Sue), 20 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. Dinah was born 21 May 1929 and passed away 01 April 2010 in Howick.
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| Graham Gordon Wulff |
One of the grandchildren, Jennifer Anne WULFF, married Joseph David PRESTO in May 2006 in Dorado, Puerto Rico. Jennifer was then a staff writer for People magazine in New York. She is the daughter of Sylvia CHERRY of Miami and Donald WULFF of Orton, Ontario, and the step-daughter of Margaret WULFF and Gary HECHT. Her father retired as a computer software engineer with Bell Canada in Toronto. Her mother is a real estate agent with the Coconut Grove, Florida.
Another grandchild, Tammy FRAZER, owns the The South African perfume house, Frazer Parfum, based in Cape Town, which creates perfumes by hand. Her father worked at Swiss perfume house Givaudan while both her aunt and uncle, as chemists, pioneered the start of homeopathy in South Africa. Tammy grew up in Durban and later lived in Sydney, Australia, where she worked in banking. In 2008 she returned to South Africa, settling in Bantry Bay and developing her perfumes. Her clients include Harrods in London.
Graham was also involved in South African golfing history. In 1930, Sewsunker "Papwa" SEWGOLUM was born to his blind mother in Durban. He came from a modest background, his great-grandfather having arrived in Natal as an indentured labourer from India. Papwa attended Kulmareddy Indian School until Standard 2 but his father died when he was 13 years old and, left with the responsibility of looking after his mother and younger brother, he had to leave school and find work. He started caddying at the Beachwood Golf Club, which he did for 14 years. Apartheid laws at the time prevented him from competing in golf tournaments, even though he won the Natal Amateur at age 16, but in a non-whites competition. He was greatly helped by Graham Wulff, when Graham was playing golf with some colleagues and one of the men asked Papwa, who was caddying, which club he should use for an approach to the green. Papwa suggested either a six or seven iron. The man took his advice, but played a poor shot and took his frustration out on Papwa, who didn't take kindly to the abuse and put the man's bag down and began to walk away. Graham called him back and asked him whether he would have used the same iron to reach the green. "Yes," the caddie replied. He then placed a ball and knocked his approach to within half a metre of the pin. In subsequent rounds, Graham would ask the caddy master for Papwa to caddy for him and his business partners, Jack LOWE and Edmund ANDERSON. Whenever other members were out of sight, Graham encouraged his caddy to play along. In 1956, Graham hired Papwa to install bottle caps at his chemical factory, which manufactured Oil of Olay. He paid Papwa $40 per month, a respectable sum in those days, and gave him time off to practice golf.
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| Sewsunker "Papwa" Sewgolum |
In 1959 Graham purchased a twin-engined, six-seater Piper aircraft and personally flew Papwa overseas to play in the British Open at Muirfield. They made stopovers at Beira, Dar es Salaam, Entebbe, Juba, Khartoum, Cairo, Benghazi, Tripoli, Tunis and Rome. It was Papwa's first trip outside Durban. Graham then took him to the Netherlands to compete in the 1960 Dutch Open. Papwa won the tournament, successfully defended it the following year, became a three-time winner of the title in 1963, and finished as runner-up in 1964. Back in South Africa, in 1961 he gained entrance to the South African Open in East London. However, he was denied the right to practice on the course, and was not allowed to use the clubhouse. He finished 16th. He won the 1963 Natal Open and became the first person of colour to win a professional golf tournament in South Africa. In 1966, the suburb in which he lived was declared a white area. Papwa moved with his wife Suminthra and children into a part of town reserved for Indians. He continued playing golf, but became depressed and drank. He died of a heart attack on 05 July 1978. He had five children, including Rajen who also plays golf and is a part-time lecturer at the Durban University of Technology. Rajen's son, Nisharlan, is also a golfer.