A bit of an unusual post today! This will be a history lesson, a discussion on our local mystery, and a creative archive post all in one! Which is to say this article will be fairly large compared to what is usually posted on the creative archives!

In this article, we will be covering beauty company Troy Brands, their beloved mascot Helena Troy, and their creative ventures! We will also be looking at possible connections between their character and local cartoon mystery Miss Hecate!

Troy Beauty Products, Recovered and Photographed by the Pendog Team

Founded in the late fifties, Troy Brands was a relatively small company started on a small dream by an even smaller individual known as Phil Barnum. Barnum’s background in beauty and fashion was nothing special, however he was among many trying to get a foot in the door during an era in which fashion and beauty were being revolutionized. The potential for fortune was ripe for the taking.

Starting Troy Brands with a large loan from his father and the support of friends already in the industry, Barnum would try for years to make a name for his company in the industry. He was an amazing marketing man but, in the words of his own friends, not so good at releasing quality products. It was this mix of showmanship and incompetence that saw the company struggling along for two or so years, barely turning enough of a profit to stay afloat but always with Phil making promises of, “We’ll get big eventually! If you stick with me,” to underpaid employees. With this in mind, it shouldn’t be that surprising to learn that in the year of 1958, debt collectors were visiting the premises regularly, and Barnum was stuck in his office desperately trying to figure out how to pull the company out of its situation.

This all changed in the summer of that same year, when Barnum emerged from his office, presenting to his small marketing team the design that would end up saving the company. It should be noted that Barnum was not a good artist, failing to make a living off of artwork prior to this venture, and this work…while available for viewing, is honestly so poor that it would be an insult to him to host it on this site. However, the pressure of incoming financial ruin must have lit a fire in the man’s creative ability, because the character he presented to his marketing team was an instant hit.

Her name was Helena Troy, an obvious play on Helen of Troy from mythology. With a cute visage and stylish outfit, this character immediately moved into the main marketing for the company, and from there things seemed to improve. People from all over the country were forming lines to buy their products, and the quality of their beauty line began to increase rapidly as well, perhaps spurred on by the exponential income resulting from Helena’s success.

Helena was described by the company as, “every girl's best friend,” and, “the girl so beautiful cities topple in her wake.” This prior motto would extend to Troy Brands’ intense marketing aimed towards young women and girls who became the prime customers. Soon, almost every household in America could be found to contain their beauty products, with little girls across the country owning Troy Brand play purses and nail polish.

The company's rise in the beauty industry was not without casualties, as many beauty companies–some owned by the friends who had helped Barnum get his start in the first place– would be forced to shutter their doors, due to being undercut by Troy Brands’ low prices and quality products. It should be here that we note Barnum was a very ruthless businessman. He was reported to leave his friends hanging in peril, waiting for them to declare bankruptcy before swooping in to plunder their corporate empire and bringing it under the Troy Brand fold. When a beauty company started to show promise of being a future threat, Troy would do one of two things: buy out the company and give the former owners positions as consultants, or starve them out of customers and approach them again with the same offer.

Helena Troy meanwhile would feature on lipstick, nail polish, clothing, beauty magazines, and more. Her character was stated to be, “a woman who lived for the excesses of life and let her heart take the steering wheel.” She was also typically portrayed as someone who, when seeing something she wanted, would doggedly pursue it often to her own detriment. In magazine strips and production art, Helena would tend to fall in love with someone or obsess over something, and when this happened her eyes would narrow together into a heart shape. This was referred to in production art as her Love Blinders.

Model sheet of a horned woman with stylized hair and a pair of eyes conjoined into a large heart at the center of her face. Her pupils form a single dot that can only look one direction. The sheets labeled front down up and side. — **Helena Troy Model Sheet**

These stories would usually end with Helena nearly getting what she wanted, but then at the last minute, would get too ambitious and ruin everything for herself. This would range from accidentally sending her love interest tumbling off Niagara Falls, or opening a brand new theater production way too early and selling no seats at all.

Helena Troy, Animation Production Materials

Helena’s popularity would grow to be so much that plans were made in order to create an animated tv show featuring her as the protagonist, living in a world called Beauty Land. From production stories, it would have been a thinly veiled advertisement for future Troy Brand products, which is not that surprising. What is surprising, however, is the event that would bring the company to its knees, Helena Troy into obscurity, and Phil Barnum to a grisly end.

By 1967, the company was rapidly making plans for new ventures and greater scopes. Phil Barnum was the leading name in the industry, and Helena Troy was a name recognized by every passerby. Troy Brands, in a display of their success and wealth, would host a beauty expo on which they showed off developments in their products. Models wore Troy Brands’ finest clothing, and Helena balloons floated across the sky.

It was an amazing event, and Troy Brands revealed their greatest product yet, a skin cream that leaves a person's skin silky smooth free of blemishes, acne, and other such things. It was predicted to be a massive success and from the gleeful reactions of testers, the company's newest miracle product seemed to have a very bright future.

Tragically, the skin cream was not tested thoroughly before being used on volunteers at the fair. All I can say is that multiple people were left harmed, and countless others were left dead. The pictures are not something I would feel comfortable sharing, and although there’s an account we have gotten from our historians' interview with someone affected by this event, I am still unsure whether it would be right to post it on this site - for you or for them… I’ll have to see. The following month, the company would be pulled before a hearing and slapped with heavy fines, punishments, and more. Something the company would almost immediately topple under the weight of.

Phil Barnum would be found dead in his personal quarters in the following months, police claiming the cause of death was from gunfire... At least they presumed so. A big mystery with Phil’s death is that although his body was perforated with many holes that would indicate gunshot wounds, inspectors could not find any bullets nor damage to the surrounding room. To this day, it’s a big mystery how he met his demise. Perhaps it was an angry investor, or vigilante justice from the family of those harmed by his final product. Regardless, it’s a gruesome end to a morbid tale.

Helena Troy - every girl's best friend - would topple with the company, forgotten by time and largely unnoticed until today as I write about her. A big question you long time readers of the blog may be wondering is if Helena Troy has any connection to Miss Hecate, our local cartoon mystery. The answer is, to me and to you, frustratingly vague. In all my research, I have found no mention of Hecate. However, the two are so similar in appearance that there must be some sort of influence. After all, Barnum was documented as being a notorious thief of toppled companies’ ideas and belongings. Or maybe that could just be my mind stringing together clues where there are none, just many red yarn threads that connect to each other without any actual meaning.

There is a single written quote regarding the character's creation, from Barnum himself.

“I was under a lot, a LOT of pressure. (Laughing.) I was desperate to make the company work or I’d be strung up by debt holders and other folks. However under all that pressure an idea wormed its way into my brain. It was a little cartoon doll, with a red dress and white buttons, and two horns. I drew it out immediately and was instantly transfixed by the character. This, I thought, this is what will save my company.”

Knowing Barnum’s history of lying and sabotage, I'm not sure how much of his account we can believe. I can’t help but notice his use of the word worming. Knowing Hecate’s 1930s appearance was documented as being “worm-like,” I wonder if he was hinting at the inspiration behind Helena.

When I got contacted about Helena Troy, I immediately sprung on the opportunity to write about her. She’s so fascinating to me, and a little sad. Forgotten for years, I hope she’ll enjoy her place on our website. I think if she was alive, she’d enjoy being read about and admired just like she used to… All the way back in the 60s when she was every girl's friend.

Helena Troy, Troy Beauty Brands

Goddess of Beauty, Collage