Focus on ... Estée Lauder

The Estée Lauder brand is always associated with the highest quality in their products, innovation, passion, class, distinction, timeless elegance  - all the things that were embodied by Estée Lauder, the wonderful woman that created the brand. Let's see her story :   

Born for Beauty  

The niece of a Hungarian chemist, Estée was trained in the art of face creams at an early age. 

Josephine Esther Mentzer was born in New York City. Her parents, Rose Schotz, a Hungarian beauty, and Max Mentzer, a Czechoslovakian businessman who carried a cane and gloves on Sunday, called her Esty, which was changed to Estée when she enrolled in school.

The name stuck, but one early detail was never officially pinned down: her birth date. “You ask my age? I tell you it simply doesn’t matter,” she’d famously say to dodge the question. “Glow,” after all—not a number—was the real essence of beauty, she believed.

  “The first beauty I ever recognized was my mother,” said Estée. Some of her earliest memories were of her mother’s grooming ritual, which revolved around applying rich creams to her face and hands to keep her skin soft and smooth. “Hands [are] as telling as any written pedigree,” Rose would tell her impressionable daughter.

Estée toyed with becoming an actress, as she believed that “actresses were the epitome of beauty.” She even appeared on stage at New York’s Cherry Lane Theater a few years after she had her first son, Leonard, who would sit in the back of the theater and watch as she rehearsed. But in the end, acting didn’t satisfy her the way whipping up skincare solutions did. “I wanted to see my name in lights, but I was willing to settle for my name on a jar.”

  
While her father owned a hardware store where Estée would arrange window displays, she was more interested in taking after her uncle John Schotz, a chemist. He had taught her to cleanse her skin with oils rather than harsh soaps, and to mix up batches of his unique, all-around skin cream. “It was a preciously velvety cream, this potion, one that magically made you sweetly scented, made your face feel like spun silk, made any passing imperfections be gone by evening,” Estée recalled, and she soon dubbed it the Super-Rich All Purpose Creme. It was her first glimpse at something that provided “the power to create beauty.” 

The Start of Something Beautiful

“Success depends on daring to act on dreams,” according to Estée, who turned a homespun cream into a global cosmetics empire. Estée built her company with the perfect mix of know-how, dedication, persistence, passion, family commitment–and a lot of free samples.

In 1946 Estée officially launched her namesake line with four hardworking products—The Cleansing Oil, The Creme Pack, her uncle’s Super-Rich All Purpose Creme, and The Skin Lotion. She was her own publicist, often showing up to beauty parlors around New York City to perform makeovers while women sat under the hairdryers. Applying a grassroots marketing approach—“telephone, telegraph, tell-a-woman,” as she’d explain it—Estée expanded her customer base to other salons and hotels around the city.

After Estée’s “millionth” request, Robert Fisk, the cosmetics buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue, finally agreed to place his first order of her product—$800 worth,  to be exact—in 1946.
To announce her arrival at the upscale department store, Estée sent out elegant white cards with gold lettering to inform the store’s preferred-customer list that she would be offering a free cream-based powder with every purchase. Within two days, the entire stock was sold out—and the industry’s “gift with purchase” marketing concept was born.

 “I never knew I was a 'nose,'” Estée would say humbly, but in 1953 she discovered a blend of rose, jasmine, vetiver and patchouli that would bring her olfactory fame. She called it Youth-Dew. It wasn’t a perfume, but a bath oil that doubled as a fragrance—just the type of thing a woman could buy for herself without “giving tiresome hints to her husband,” and could wear without waiting for a special occasion.

It took the industry by storm, as did the advertisement, which depicted the risqué, though tastefully blurred, profile of a nude woman. Estée would later sell Youth-Dew by the gallon to fans like Gloria Swanson, Dolores Del Rio, and Joan Crawford, who claimed the intoxicating aroma helped her snare her fourth husband.

Convinced that European women were as “face-conscious” as they were “fashion-conscious,” Estée launched her brand at Harrods in London in 1960, after years of charming its buyer. Next came Galeries Lafayette in Paris, where Estée famously spilled Youth-Dew on the floor, prompting customers to ask about the intoxicating aroma, and securing her a spot at the counters. “They later said I did it on purpose. I’ll never tell,” she mused.

The brand would expand into the rapidly emerging markets of Moscow in 1981, and Shanghai in 1993. Today, Estée Lauder is sold in over 150 countries across the globe.

As her empire grew to include makeup, Estée realized that the success of her lipsticks often came down to their names. “Honest, lucid, graphic descriptions—that’s what I was after,” she’d explain. Early hits included Duchess Crimson, a clear, strong red; All Day Rose, a soft pink that was ideal for working women; and Dancing Red, a “go-out-in-the-evening” shade. Each bullet was packaged in a golden metal case, a feminine design that became an instant icon of elegance and sophistication.   
  
In 1956, Estée launched her most luxurious cream yet, Re-Nutriv. At $115 per jar—equivalent to approximately $1,000 in today's money—it was pricey, but she was quick to reason that is was worth every penny. “Why do you spend so much for a Picasso? The linen under his painting costs $2.75, each jar of paint he used was perhaps $1.75. Why, then, do you pay a small fortune for a small picture? You’re paying for creativity…for experience…and something that works for you.” 
 
Estée believed “3 minutes is all beauty should ever take.” She created quick routines for makeup and skincare, which she eagerly demonstrated on women—at every store where an Estée Lauder counter opened, while riding on a train or an elevator, or simply walking down the street. She loved nothing more than transforming a woman’s look with her personal touch, and doling out bits of advice along the way. 
  
The little brown bottle with big results - one of Estée's most enduring legacies came in the form of a "little brown bottle". In 1982 she launched Night Repair Cellular Recovery Complex, the first scientifically based serum to repair skin's appearance during the night. Now incorporating the latest innovations and with 25+ patents worldwide, Advanced Night Repair Syncronized Recovery Complex II helps promote the natural syncronization of skin's nighttime repair process to help skin look younger.

Estée Lauder began expanding internationally in 1960 and is now sold in over 150 countries across the globe.
 
In May 2004, Estée passed away at the age of 97 leaving behind a family and a company that would carry on her legacy, not to mention countless friends and admirers who took inspiration from her passion and hard work.  “She turned ‘No you can’t, into ‘Yes I will," the legendary journalist and TV personality Barbara Walters remarked at her memorial service. An aspiring actress, Estée Lauder wanted to see her name in lights. She made sure it is forever emblazoned on an everlasting monument to beauty.       source: esteelauder.com  

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