Less than a decade ago, Maybelline was a mass-market cosmetics brand with an image problem. But in 1996, it was taken over by French personal-grooming behemoth L'Oreal, headed by Lindsay Owen-Jones. As it has done with so many of its 17 beauty brands--like the zany personal-care line Garnier or the ethnic hair-care concern SoftSheen/Carson--L'Oreal gave Maybelline a marketing face-lift and sent it out to conquer the world. "I had what was perhaps an unrealistic ambition," Owen-Jones, 58, told TIME: "to put a Maybelline lipstick in the hand of every woman in China."
Not so crazy. Maybelline was launched in China...