CINCINNATI -- The Procter & Gamble Co. plans to phase out U.S. distribution of the century-old Max Factor makeup brand, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

The Cincinnati-based consumer products maker said it plans to keep selling Max Factor overseas, where its sales have been strongest, even after it ends U.S. sales of Max Factor products in early 2010.

Spokeswoman Anitra Marsh said sales of CoverGirl makeup have risen the past eight years and are nearing $1 billion a year, while Max Factor sales, which total $1.2 billion a year globally, have been better overseas.

The two brands are sold widely by U.S. drugstores, other large retailers and online.

Max Factor was founded by a Russian immigrant who had worked as a makeup artist for the Royal Ballet in prerevolutionary Russia, according to Procter & Gamble's website. After moving to the United States in 1904, Factor opened a makeup and perfume concession at the World's Fair in St. Louis. In 1909, he founded a Los Angeles theatrical makeup shop where he developed and packaged the first greasepaint in cream form, according to the site.

P&G credits Factor with the idea of matching makeup to a person's natural coloring and with inventing cake makeup, first for movie actors, and then popularizing the use of makeup by women across the country at the end of the Great Depression.

P&G acquired the brand from Revlon Inc. in 1991.