The Beauty Queens of Boro Park

During a recent beauty and skincare class in Boro Park, New York, the women are excited. As Rachel Weingarten demonstrates how to use facial masks, Mrs. L, a regular attendee, raises her arms high and says in her thick Polish accent, “Over ninety beauty: YEAH!” Like everyone else in the class, she is a Holocaust survivor.

Rachel loves to see the women get excited like this, and her interest in teaching beauty tips to these women is personal: She is both the child and grandchild of survivors—a rare legacy. More than 100 extended family members on her mother’s side were murdered by the Nazis, as well as half of her father’s ten siblings.

“Few people are fortunate enough to regularly interact with Holocaust survivors and few would guess how much joy most of them have in their lives, despite having endured hell on earth,” Rachel says. “Offering beauty treatments connects the women they are now to the women they were before.”

Older women often become invisible or are considered no longer interesting or beautiful in our society, Rachel adds. “The cosmetics industry has narrow age silos, which makes me crazy. They can’t conceive of serving women over 60, but there are stunning, vibrant women in their seventies and older.”

Beauty in the Family

Rachel has always been fascinated by beauty, influenced strongly by both parents. Despite having been only one of only about 1,500 child concentration camp survivors, Rachel’s father, David Weingarten, retained a lifelong interest in beauty in many forms, enjoying opera, fine art, and literature. Rachel’s mother, Leah, owned a series of boutiques in Boro Park and as a teen, Rachel often traveled with her to Paris on buying trips. Rachel obsessively studied beauty looks of different eras, and worked her way up as a makeup artist for weddings and Manhattan socialites to become an A-list celebrity makeup artist. She’s also a beauty historian and author of several non-fiction books including Hello Gorgeous! Beauty Products in America ‘40s-‘60s, which will be reissued this year.

Rachel Weingarten

Growing up amid such a pervasive shadow of the Holocaust, Rachel explains, “I just wanted to be normal, yet my exposure to survivors hadn’t been exclusively positive. But as an adult, I see how the world forgets the Holocaust and antisemitism is growing, and I believe it is my destiny to help survivors still alive today—and to help people remember.”

Super-Survivors

For this reason, four years ago Rachel merged her love of beauty with her devotion to the survivors. Once a month she walks through the doors of the Boro Park Y, which hosts Club Nissim and its many programs for survivors, among them Beauty Talk with Rachel. Her class draws up to 40 women in their 80s and 90s eager to learn the latest in skincare and makeup trends for their stage of life.

Gerontologists and actuaries consider these Holocaust survivors “super-survivors” for having lived so long despite the physical and psychological damage they endured. While Rachel acknowledges that a few of the women who attend her talks can be a bit challenging, “most are delightful, resilient, curious, and have a sense of humor. Sometimes they remind me of teenagers, asking, ‘Is this lipstick good on me? Can I wear these colors to a wedding?’ You should hear them with their heavy European accents try to pronounce ‘hyaluronic acid.’ It's adorable.”

Last year, Rachel also became a certified chaplain—the latest in a long list of professional achievements. When she met with a hospitalized 92-year-old survivor who was depressed and hadn’t been eating, Rachel noticed how the woman perked up when seeing the chaplain’s beautifully polished nails.

“Would you like me to do your nails also?” Rachel asked the woman, who immediately said yes. Rachel returned with a manicure kit, painting the woman’s nails a soft shimmery pink with an accent nail of dazzling silver. The patient began showing off her nails to everyone. The manicure obviously wasn’t a miracle cure, but the patient began to improve, and some weeks later, Rachel returned to do her nails again before the patient attending a grandchild’s wedding.

Rachel and her sister also founded the RWR Network, a national non-profit organization that offers support to vulnerable members of society through one-on-one advocacy, reskilling for older workers, and Holocaust education. They also offer fun seminars and classes with an underlying theme of adding more joy to one’s life, even during the toughest times.

Because no more than 11 percent of Europe’s population of Jewish children survived World War II, Rachel says, “I feel like my whole life is a miracle. I was raised with the value of chesed, kindness, but I never imagined that it would feel this good to help other people. It’s a gift for me to be able to connect with others and sit and talk or try to find ways to share a moment of joy on an everyday basis. If I empower them in the process, it’s amazing.”

I don’t see wrinkles or age spots. I see their smile, the shape of their face. They know I love them.

Rachel attributes her former success as a celebrity makeup artist to her ability to zero in on each person’s beauty, overlooking flaws. With her octogenarian and nonagenarian students, “I don’t see wrinkles or age spots. I see their smile, the shape of their face. They know I love them and want them to feel beautiful. I want them to feel what I can see.”

Currently, Rachel is developing a line of cosmetics for seniors, with a focus on ease of use and multi-use products. Still, she cautions the women at Club Nissim against going overboard. When they ask, “Am I too old for Botox?” she gently dissuades them, saying, “Show the world that you laughed.”