Long before she became the cosmetics pioneer and driving force behind Estee Lauder, Josephine Esther Mentzer was born in Queens, New York in 1908, armed with the drive to work hard, the determination to succeed and a passion for beauty. She succeed indeed, and transformed beauty into big business.

A beautician by trade, she started a company with a skin cream developed by her chemist uncle….and the rest is history. In 1946, with her husband Joseph, she launched the Estée Lauder brand with only 4 skincare products. Within its first 2 years, Saks Fifth Avenue in New York opened the first Estée Lauder counter in the world, and products sold out within the first 2 hours. It was around this time that Lauder pioneered the practice of giving a free gift with purchase marketing strategy.

Youth Dew was launched in 1953 and customers loved it! Estée Lauder understood what women wanted and how to sell it to them. She used samples to tempt customers and perhaps the most powerful tool, demonstration or as we know it today complimentary makeup application, to “wow” her customers. The list of firsts for the brand has continued year after year……Estee Lauder continued to thrive in the decades that followed with her expansion to overseas markets and the launches of the men\’s product line Aramis and the Clinique brand.

The brand Estee Lauder is synonymous with luxury, innovation, quality and beauty, and the company that she built still remains in the family today. Her oldest son Leonard is the chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies; her younger son Ronald is the chairman of Clinique Laboratories, LLC, and her grandson William Lauder is the executive chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies. Today, many of our most loved, iconic and cult beauty brands are under the Estée Lauder Co. wing including Bobbi Brown, MAC, Jo Malone, Clinique, Creme de la Mer, Tom Ford and Origins.

Did you Know?

Synonymous with the Estée Lauder brand for 34 years, Advanced Night Repair is a staple found in women’s cosmetics cabinets all around the world since first launched in 1982. In one year, Estée Lauder sold 1,300,000 bottles of Advanced Night Repair globally, or 3 bottles every single minute!