98 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • MAY 2021
REAR VIEW
ESTÉE LAUDER BEST FACE FORWARD
BY ANNIE WILKINSON
It’s the 1930s. You’re a woman
having your hair done at a salon,
sitting under a bulky contraption
that’s blowing warm air on your
wet head. In those pre-handheld
dryer times, the hooded device
was the only way to dry your
locks. You have to sit there, thumbing
through movie magazines or
chatting with other women hoping
their hair dries before boredom
sets in.
Enter an enterprising young woman
bearing intriguing wares. As
the dryers whir and hum, she deftly
dabs cream on your face. She is in
her element, believing that touching
the consumer and explaining
the flattering results make the sale.
Not bad for someone who skipped
college to whip up skin creams in
a stable.
QUEENS’ QUEEN OF
BEAUTY
That woman was Estée Lauder, a
pioneering beauty industry titan
who revolutionized how cosmetics
were marketed and sold. Her
motto? “Never underestimate any
woman’s desire for beauty.”
Josephine Esther Mentzer lived a
rags-to-riches American dream.
She was born at home to Eastern
European Jewish immigrant parents
in Corona, Queens, around
Estée Lauder giving a makeover. (Library of Congress)
1906. Her Hungarian mother Rose
Mentzer was fascinated by beauty regimens,
buying the largest jars of hand
lotion, visiting spas, and protecting
herself from the sun with gloves or
a black parasol. “Esty” (later “Estée”)
worked with her siblings to help make
ends meet in the hardware store owned
by their Czech father Max Mentzer. A
petite blonde with fine skin, she always
tried to look her best.
In 1924, when she was attending Newtown
High School in Elmhurst, her
Hungarian uncle John Schotz moved
in with the family. A trained chemist,
he created an array of concoctions,
from freckle remover and embalming
fluid to velvety smooth lotions, in the
kitchen and in a stable out back. His
niece was hooked, learning how to
make creams and apply them.
She married Joseph Lauder in 1930 and
while raising her toddler son Leonard,
built a business through personal demos.
She possessed the ability to waltz
into salons, smear creams and makeup
on a woman’s face or wrist, tell her that
the products gave her “a gentle glow,”
and nail the sale.
JARS OF HOPE
Her chutzpah. Moxie. Gall. All led
to the 1946 company launch of just
four products. The couple manufactured
them in the kitchen of a former
restaurant, cooking and bottling
products by night and selling them
by day. Joseph handled the finances
and production.
In 1947, Saks Fifth Avenue ordered
$800 worth of products; they sold out
in two days. "We were selling jars of
hope,” she later recalled.
She upended traditional marketing
techniques by giving away samples
and, especially, by promotions that created
the “gift with purchase” concept.
Her son Leonard wrote in his memoir
The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty
how she once interrupted a Salvation
Army sister’s bell-ringing, saying
she could help her skin look and feel
fresher because “There’s no excuse for
looking untidy.”
The empire builder trained women at
sales counters and salons, teaching
them to convey her philosophy
that her products would help
customers feel young. She knew
what women wanted.
MOVING UP
In 1967, the first manufacturing
site opened in Melville in Suffolk
County, Long Island. The
company added fragrance and
haircare products to its lines
and garnered as much attention
as commerce giants including
Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Disney.
She hobnobbed with the
Duchess of Windsor, Princess
Grace of Monaco, Nancy Reagan,
and other celebrities.
Lindy Woodhead wrote in The
Telegraph in 1973 that meeting
Lauder was like being in the
presence of royalty: “Small,
with orange-tinted hair, wearing
bright blue crêpe de chine
that matched her chlorine-blue
eyes, she swept me up in the
aura of her personality.”
Lauder became the world’s
wealthiest self-made woman
and kept going to work every
day until her mid-80s. But she
never forgot her family, buying
vacation property in Wainscott
in East Hampton to be close to
her children and grandchildren,
who lived nearby and helped
run the business.
Her granddaughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer,
who inherited the Wainscott
home, told Harper’s Bazaar Arabia
“how incredible it was … to have this
passion and dream, and to create
something out of nothing at a time
when most women were not working.”
Today, the company still leads the
beauty industry, selling products in
150 countries and territories under
brand names including Estée Lauder,
Aramis (for men), Clinique, Origins,
DKNY, Aveda, and others. Her company
employs 48,000 people worldwide
and the family’s net worth is $40
billion.
Estée Lauder died at age 97 in 2004 in
Manhattan.
"We were selling jars of hope.”
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