Max Factor, the original Hollywood movie studio make-up brand, will disappear from store shelves in the US early next year.

Procter & Gamble, the Cincinnati-based owner of the century-old brand, said that Max Factor no longer had a sufficiently significant market share in America. P&G will focus its resources on the more popular CoverGirl line.

Max Factor has only 1 per cent of the US makeup market and unlike similarly-priced rivals is not stocked by major drug store chains such as Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid.

The makeup is far more popular overseas, including the UK. At present, Max Factor outsells CoverGirl with $1.2 billion in sales each year compared to $1 billion for its newer rival. But CoverGirl has increased its US market share every year for the last seven years while Max Factor has stagnated.

Even bringing in big guns such as reknowned makeup artist Pat McGrath, Baywatch babe Carmen Electra and supermodel Gisele Bundchen in recent advertising campaigns failed to revive Max Factor’s fortunes in the US.

Makeup fans immediately filled blogs with posts mourning the brand’s American demise, particularly the disappearance of its 2000 Calorie mascara.

“I am so bummed about this that I don’t even know what to think,” beautyjunkiesunite.com wrote. According to stylelist.com: “This news strikes me as an incredibly sad, as it's the end of an era in beauty.”

The brand was created in 1909 by Max Factor, a makeup artist at the Royal Ballet in Russia who emigrated the US. Mr Factor moved to California, where he set up a shop that specialised in makeup for films, creating a thinner version of the greasepaint traditionally used by stage actors.

Although Max Factor makeup later graced the faces of famous beauties including Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe, it was worn for the first time on camera by a man – the actor Henry B Walthall, who worked as a model for screen tests.

By 1930 Mr Factor had created the world’s first lip gloss and the first waterproof makeup in 1971. P&G, which bought Max Factor from Revlon in 1991 for $1.1 billion,claims that he even invested the word “makeup” itself.

The Factor family sold the business in 1973 for about $500 million.

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