Estee Lauder

Mrs Estee Lauder, the founder of Estee Lauder

Biography

Estée Lauder was born on July 1, 1906. She was the co-founder, along with her husband, Joseph Lauder, of Estée Lauder Companies, her cosmetics company. She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lauder was born as Josephine Esther Mentzer in Corona, Queens in 1906. She was one of nine children born to a Hungarian Jewish mother, Rose Schotz Rosenthal, and a Czechoslovak Jewish father, Max Mentzer.  Much of her childhood was spent trying to make ends meet with most of the nine children helping out at the family's hardware store. Lauder got her first taste of business was when she was working at this store. Her father’s hardware store gave her a better understanding of entrepreneurship and what it takes to be a successful retailer. She graduated from Newtown High School. As Estée grew older she became more interested in her uncle's business than her father's. She agreed to help her uncle, Dr John Schotz, a chemist that owned a company called New Way Laboratories, he sold numerous beauty products. Lauder was fascinated as she watched him create creams, lotions, rouge, and fragrances. Her uncle taught her how to wash her face and do facial massages. After high school, she focused on her uncle's business. She called one of his creams Super Rich All-Purpose Cream and began selling beauty products to her friends. She met Joseph Lauter when she was in her early 20s. On January 15, 1930, they married. The surname was later changed from Lauter to Lauder. The Lauders's first child, Leonard was born March 19, 1933.  They separated in 1939 (when she moved to Florida), but remarried in 1942. They had a second son, Ronald. The couple remained married thereafter until his death in 1982.

Career

The Estée Lauder company was created in 1935. Her older son, Leonard Lauder, was chief executive of Estée Lauder and is now chairman of the board. Her younger son, Ronald, was a Republican political appointee in the Reagan administration. One day, as she was getting her hair done at the House of Ash Blondes, Florence Morris, the salon owner, came up to her. She asked Lauder about her perfect skin. Soon, Lauder came back to the salon and handed out four of her uncle's creams and demonstrated how to use them. Morris was so impressed that she asked Lauder to sell her products at her new salon. In 1948, she persuaded the bosses of New York City department stores to give her counter space at Saks Fifth Avenue. Once in that space, she utilized a personal selling approach that proved as potent as the promise of her skin regimens and perfumes. Even after forty years in business, Estée Lauder would attend every launch of a new cosmetics counter or shop. She would give her famous friends and acquaintances small samples of her products for their handbags, she wanted her brand in the hands of people who were known for having "the best".  In 1953, Lauder introduced her first fragrance, Youth Dew, a bath oil that doubled as a perfume. Instead of using their French perfumes by the drop behind each ear, women were using Youth Dew by the bottle in their bath water. In the first year Youth Dew sold fifty thousand, by 1984, the figure had jumped to one hundred and fifty million. Estee lauder died at the age of 97 of cardiopulmonary arrest on the April 24, 2004 at her home in Manhattan.