Olay is a product truly born from love, as it was created by a man as a gift for his wife. In the 1950s, chemist Graham Wulff saw his wife Dinah’s frustration with the thick, waxy beauty creams that came in shoe-polish tins. They left her skin looking greasy, and they certainly didn’t fit with her feminine sensibility. Graham wanted to create a new beauty product for her—one that could not only moisturise her skin, but also leave her feeling beautiful and feminine.
With his formula complete and the first batch mixed by hand, Graham enlisted the help of an advertising agency that he found in the Yellow Pages. Account executive Jack Lowe quickly became Graham’s lifelong friend and business partner, and the two soon created a company to produce and market Oil of Olay.