Armand

Carl Weeks was born in Linn County, Iowa on December 2, 1876. His father Charles was a prosperous veterinarian and hog breeder, and his mother Laura was the sister of two successful pharmaceuticals entrepreneurs, Davis and Lowell Chamberlain. At about the time Carl was born, Lowell moved his Chamberlain Medicine Company, the first Iowa drug company from eastern Iowa, to Des Moines. In 1889, Carl quit school, moved to Des Moines and began working in a drug store. In 1891, at the age of 15 and thanks to the financial support of Lowell, Carl enrolled in the Highland Park College to study pharmacy. Carl's father, Charles Weeks, died young in an accident, and Laura's brothers assisted her family financially.

After graduating in 1892, Carl moved to Oskaloosa and worked at the Green and Bentley Drug Store for seven years. He became a registered pharmacist in 1894. In 1900, Carl opened the Red Cross Drug Store in Centerville, Iowa. This same year, Lowell and Davis assisted Carl's oldest brother Deyet in starting his own company, the D. Weeks Drug Company. In 1902, after a brief period in a dry Western climate for health reasons, Carl and his younger brother Leo joined Deyet in his company. The focus was on over the counter drugs and face powder.

In 1907, Carl married Edith Van Slyke, whom he had courted for four years, including visiting her in Europe while she was studying. A year later Deyet Weeks died. Carl and Leo took over D. Weeks and also founded the D.C. Leo Company, through which Carl made two of his many important industry innovations.

The first was the concept for a new product. While traveling in Europe, Carl had noticed the complexion of women was different than back in the states. He was inspired to add cold cream to face powder, to provide a better and more lasting coverage.

The second was in marketing. Carl and Leo began to sell D. Weeks products to pharmacists for them to package and market under their own names. This step began the private label industry that still flourishes today.

Around 1910, Davis purchased the Chamberlain Medicine Company from Lowell and made it internationally successful. Due especially to the success of Chamberlain's Cough Syrup and Chamberlain's Lotion, branches of the company were located as far away as South Africa and Australia.

In 1915, Carl ended his collaboration with Leo and started his own company, the Armand Face Powder Company. It was located in downtown Des Moines at East 1st and Des Moines Street. By this time Carl had perfected his products, using only the finest European ingredients, and he hired an important New York advertising firm to create a unique marketing and package design campaign for Armand products. The Salisbury House Foundation collections include two important original works of this design: the first trademark drawing of the Armand silhouette and the first painting of the pink, blue and white gingham package design.

You may view images of the Armand Cosmetic line in the Photo Gallery.

The Armand Company was tremendously successful. Carl established offices in five foreign cities: St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada; Mexico City, Mexico; Sidney, Australia, Paris, France; and Middlesex, England. In 1927, Fortune magazine acknowledged Armand face powder as the industry leader in the United States. Another important innovation for Armand was that Carl was the first cosmetics manufacturer to eliminate allergens from his products and market them as "hypo-allergenic." He also advertised in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Other examples of Carl's important marketing concepts were his constant explanation and promotion of his philosophy, and his steady contact with his sales force, distributors and clients. The Salisbury House Foundation collections include several of the brochures Carl produced to market his philosophy: The Creed of Beauty (1922), Old Ideas in a Brand New Suit of Clothes (1924), Really Lovely Y But She Did Not Know (1932), The Man and His Masterpiece (undated), and the Armand Broadside (quarterly).

With the fortune he had made from Armand, Carl and Edith built Salisbury House between 1923 and 1928. They moved into the house with their four sons on December 2, 1926 to celebrate Carl's 50th birthday.

Following is just a portion of the 18 page handwritten text by the late Dr. J. Earle Galloway, Professor of Pharmacology at Drake University, who was affectionately known simply as "Prof" C. Boyd Granberg, retired Dean of the College of Pharmacy gave the text to the Salisbury House Foundation on January 11, 2002:

"It was in July 1927, that I first made the acquaintance of Carl Weeks. The writer and E.O. Kragy called at his office, for help to establish an independent College of Pharmacy in Des Moines, Iowa, when it appeared that the Highland Park College of Pharmacy seemed bound for extinction. He impressed me, as he did others, with his majestic presence, his large stature, and humility, the very ideal of a kindly man, as indeed he was. His eyes were bright and piercing, his rugged face was radiant with the warmth of welcome and his hearty handshake was a pledge of friendship true. I was charmed by the flow and melody of his speech and at once conceived a liking and attachment for him, which continued to the day of his death. It is a rare privilege to have known of the great men this country has produced."

Around 1925, Davis Chamberlain sold the Chamberlain Medicine Company, but kept ownership of Chamberlain Lotion, which was third in international lotion sales in the 1930s and 1940s. Leo Weeks became ill in the early 1930s. Carl bought the D. Weeks and DC Leo companies from his brother, consolidated them and placed his son E.D. (Hud) Weeks in charge in 1935. Hud merged the two companies into the Weeks & Leo Company, modernized the products and emphasized the private label. Armand had a line of 275 cosmetics available in over 45,000 stores across the country. Sales were particularly strong on the East Coast with more than 400 accounts in New York City and distribution was almost national by 1941.

While Armand sales had remained steady through the 1930s and early 1940s, following World War II large cosmetics corporations like Revlon dominated the industry. In 1950, with the company showing no growth and 50 percent of the products' budgets going for promotion, Carl merged Armand into Weeks & Leo and retired. He was 75 years old. Chamberlain Lotion was sold to Weeks & Leo in 1955. Carl later died in 1962.

Hud Weeks operated Weeks & Leo with great success in the private label pharmaceuticals industry, offering more than 150 products. In 1963 the company moved to a modern facility in Urbandale, and when Hud retired in 1986 the company was sold to A.D. Peters.  In 2000 the Peters family sold the company to Achyut Sahasra, from Vita-Pure Inc., a New Jersey based vitamin company.  In 2005, Sanjay Srivastava joined the company as vice-president .  Weeks & Leo continues today, as one of the most successful private label medicine and cosmetics companies in the United States.