Estée Lauder

About the house

The Estée Lauder Companies was founded in New York City in 1946 by Estée and Joseph Lauder. Estée was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Queens to Hungarian Jewish immigrant parents, and she worked with her uncle, a chemist whose company sold creams, lotions and fragrances. She later added an accent mark to her nickname Estee to make it sound French. The company first carried only four products, and its first department-store account was Saks Fifth Avenue in 1948.

Fragrance came in 1953 with Youth-Dew, a bath oil that also functioned as a perfume. Joséphine Catapano of IFF is credited with creating it, and it was the company's first fragrance. Lauder is reported to have spent only about $50,000 on its advertising. In a 1985 documentary she described her approach to selling with the line "I sell it, and I sell it hard."

Decades later, Perfume Intelligence describes Pleasures as introducing the ingredient Baie Rose, which it presents as the first new natural ingredient in perfumery in 25 years.

The company says it has been controlled by the Lauder family since its founding. Over the years it has taken in other perfume names. Kilian Hennessy sold his brand By Kilian to the company, according to Cafleurebon, and a deal to acquire Tom Ford was reported as worth $2.8 billion.

Evelyn Lauder launched the company's Breast Cancer Awareness campaign in 1992.