Vanda / Beauty Counselor

Vanda was founded in 1931 by George Beeman as an American beauty company operating through a direct-sales model, distributing cosmetics and fragrances through a network of personal consultants known as Beauty Counselors rather than through conventional retail stores. The model predated Avon's mid-century expansion of this approach and reflected a broader Depression-era pattern of creating income opportunities for women through commission-based sales of beauty products. Vanda fragrances reflected the aesthetic of their era: accessible, straightforward, designed for the everyday American life of mid-century households rather than luxury aspiration. The company operated through several decades of American beauty culture, building genuine brand loyalty among its consultant network and customer base. Today Vanda exists primarily as a historical artifact of American direct-sales beauty culture—the brand is not actively developed or marketed, and its fragrances are collector items of the kind that surface in vintage perfume communities. The house holds genuine interest as documentation of pre-war American fragrance culture and the direct-sales model that shaped it.