Seen here in her Park Avenue penthouse Rubinstein had the daily newspaper spread out in front of her as she, a sharp businesswoman and cultural patron, like so many other New Yorker's, began her day with the city's dailies, a hot beverage and what appears to be several sharpened pencils, a fresh pad of paper, and the beginning of a "to do" list. Known to have an "eye for beauty" Her 26 room penthouse was decorated with outstanding modern art and surrealist pieces. Rubinstein's lifelong commitment to cutting edge art, including African art is still discussed today. For her cosmetics empire as well as her personal art collection and apartment decorated with Picassos and Renoirs among others, filmmaker and writer and designer Jean Cocteau dubbed Rubinstein "the empress of beauty." In 2017 the musical "War Paint" was produced about Rubinstein and her competitor Elizabeth Arden.

Rubinstein may first have received a mention in the Forward's Yiddish daily newspaper's English supplement. A 1929 letter from a Chicago reader, to the editor about women office workers, entitled "A Stenog. to the Rescue of her Sisters" featured a reference to Rubinstein's facial powder line. In a fierce discussion of tidiness in the office, face powder advanced by Rubinstein's cosmetic co. was noted. "Since the advent of Mme. Helena Rubinstein, the caked powder is a thing of the past." The Chicago writer affirmed that "neatness and simplicity" were the "prime requisites for the office worker." By 1943, "Madame" Rubinstein (her preferred form of address) was not only a household name but also had a regular beauty column, "Diary of a Beauty Authority" in the Forward, featuring suggestions for facial makeup by way of introducing new products in the Rubinstein line. Her column was likely considered a serious enough feature in the paper that readers were encouraged to send in their beauty questions to Rubinstein, c/o the Forward on East Broadway. The address for her mail-orders "Keys to Beauty" products was on 5th Avenue, nearby the Hotel Langdon featured in the image above. The Yiddish copy on Rubinstein's ad column promised: "orders will be fulfilled quickly."

Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali who had been doing windows in city shops such as Bonwit Teller famously spent his winter months at the St. Regis hotel pictured above. He was commissioned by Rubinstein to create a portrait of her as well as a mural and a powder compact for her line.

By the time of her death at age 94, Rubinstein was a world-renown self-made multimillionaire, and one of the world's richest women. She had an eponymous foundation on 5th Avenue in the building above, that would end up giving out over $131 million dollars worth of donations to the arts and charitable health and medical research for women and children, for nearly sixty years, by the time it closed in 2011. It was run by one of her two sons that she had from her first marriage that ended in divorce. She was a widow from her second one. The eldest of seven sisters, she employed family in all areas of her enterprise. Hear death on April 1, 1965, made the Forward's front page where it described her in part as "a Cracow woman who became a multi-millionaire," and the "queen of the cosmetics industry" who gave generously to Jewish philanthropies and to Israel where she had just opened a new laboratory recently in Nazareth, that was exporting her line from there to African countries. And they recounted the apocryphal tale that a mere few months ago, Rubinstein who remained active until her death, was robbed at home while in bed asleep. Though tied up to a chair, by the three thieves, she began to yell loudly and explained to them in no uncertain terms that given her age she was unafraid to die, but they would not succeed at robbing her of any money. And they left empty-handed.