Estée Lauder (1906-2004) was an undeniable titan in the cosmetics industry who built an enduring brand through innovative marketing.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today we’re talking about a woman whose name is synonymous with excellence in beauty. An undeniable titan in the cosmetics industry, she built an enduring brand through innovative marketing.
We’re talking about Estee Lauder.
Josephine Esther Mentzer was born in Corona, Queens to two Hungarian-Jewish immigrants: Rose and Max Metzner. While Estee declined to publicly reveal her age, it’s estimated that she was born on July 1, 1906.
Estee was exposed to merchandising at a young age. She helped her father in his hardware shop by rearranging products in the store’s window. Her fascination with beauty and skincare products came shortly thereafter.
When Estee was a teenager, her uncle, John Schotz, emigrated from Hungary and joined the family in New York. He made his own facial creams and shampoos for a living. Soon after his arrival, he established New Way Laboratories in Brooklyn, to make his products. Estee was immediately taken with the process. She began working on her own concoctions and collaborated with her uncle. While John was an excellent craftsman, he lacked business acumen. Estee soon took the lead on marketing and selling his products, peddling them everywhere she went.
In 1933, Estee married Joseph Lauder. Their first son, Leonard, quickly followed. But the couple clashed from the onset. Estee and Joseph did not conform to stereotypical gender norms of the time. Estee was ambitious and entrepreneurial. Joseph was better known for his social ease and struggled to stay gainfully employed. As a result, the two divorced in 1939. Joseph, however, never gave up on the union. In 1942, the couple reconciled and had their second son, Ronald. This time, the marriage stuck. Joseph played a key supporting role in Estee’s growing empire and the two remained together until Joseph’s death, forty years later.
By 1944, Estee was creating and selling her own creams in New York beauty parlors. Estee was a one-woman-band. Not only was she the chemist and inventor behind her products -- mixing them in her own kitchen -- she was also the lead promoter and salesperson. She knew the only way to gain maximum exposure was through department stores, and had her eye on one in particular: Saks Fifth Avenue.
When Estee first approached Saks, they wanted nothing to do with a woman from queens selling creams made from her kitchen. But Estee was a master at marketing her products. In 1946, she devised a plan. She gave away eighty lipsticks at a charity event at the distinguished Waldorf-Astoria hotel. She made sure each lipstick was beautifully packaged in a metal case, which was a real luxury, since metal was hard to come by after WWII.
Shortly thereafter, Saks was bombarded with calls from customers asking to buy more of Estee’s lipsticks. Saks called Estee and placed an order. They sold out in two days.
To meet demand, the whole family got involved. Estee and Joseph rented an old restaurant in Manhattan where Estee could create her creams on a much larger scale. Their oldest son, Leonard, delivered the products to Saks on his bicycle.
Estee traveled the country by train, pitching her products to department stores. The beauty market then, and now, was crowded and extremely competitive. Estee was regularly turned away. She gained some traction when the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, Carol Snow, interviewed her. Estee shocked Carol when she applied the product directly to Carol’s face. Estee was known for always demonstrating her products by touching a customer’s face. While unconventional, Carol loved it, and Estee made an influential friend.
Estee was meticulous when it came to the aesthetics of her products. She spent ages deciding on a color for her jars and landed on the iconic light blue that’s still in use today. Regardless of location, Estee never missed the opening of one of her counters at a department store. She’d arrive early to personally select and train the sales staff.
Despite its rapid growth, the Estee Lauder Company was still small potatoes compared to bigger names of the day like Revlon and Elizabeth Arden. Estee had to be extra creative in order to compete. She believed her facial creams were best in class, but her other products drove sales. Estee decided to start including free samples of her facial creams when customers bought a lipstick or fragrance. Thus creating the concept of “free gift with purchase”.
Her competitors laughed at the idea . Why give away your goods for free? But the idea worked. Big time. It was such a success that within a short while, all of Estee’s major competitors were copying the idea.
That wouldn’t be the last time Estee’s ideas were ripped off by bigger companies. When, in the 1950s, Estee didn’t have enough money to purchase television ads like her competitors, she instead created paper inserts that included a sample of her fragrances. These samples were mailed out with the monthly Saks membership statements. Given the ubiquity of that practice today, it’s safe to say it was another huge success for Estee. Unsurprisingly, her competitors took note and followed suit.
The fragrance in those mailers would be key to Estee Lauder’s enduring success. Seeing that most fragrances were expensive and wore off quickly, Estee concocted a fragrance with staying power at a much lower price point. The scent, “Youth Dew” was a hit. In some stores, it boosted Estee Lauder sales from a few hundred dollars a week, to a figure in the thousands. It’s now a line of fragrances worth millions of dollars.
In the late 1950s, Estee’s son, Leonard, took on a larger role in the business as his mother aged. He also expanded the company’s reach. Responding to demand for hypoallergenic products, he created the Clinique skincare line which targets a younger clientele.
The Estee Lauder Company remained privately owned for many decades, far longer than its competitors. Only a few family members knew the recipes to any given product. In 1995, Leonard took the company public. To this day, immediate family members retain voting control of the company.
Estee remained active in public life, hobnobbing with some of society's most elite figures. She remained the spokesperson for Estee Lauder until her death in 2004. She was 97 years old.
Today, Estee Lauder Companies is worth $14 billion dollars.
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