Estee Lauder Biography Update, Age, Career, Personal Life, Education, Awards

Estée Lauder, born Josephine Esther Mentzer on July 1, 1908, was an American businesswoman. She started the Estée Lauder cosmetics company with her husband, Joseph Lauter, who later changed his last name to Lauder. In 1998, Time magazine named her the only woman among the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century.

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Age

Josephine Esther Mentzer was born on July 1, 1908, in New York City.

Here is a quick overview of her personal details:

Biography and Education

Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Corona, Queens, New York City. She was the second child of Rose Schotz, who came from Sátoraljaújhely, Hungary, and Max Mentzer, who was born in Pressburg, now Bratislava, Slovakia. Both parents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants. Her maternal grandmother was from Sátoraljaújhely and her grandfather from Gelle, now Holice, Slovakia. Her father had Czech-Jewish roots. Some of Lauder’s stories about being descended from European aristocracy were later disproved in the biography Estée Lauder: Beyond the Magic (1985) by Lee Israel. The New York Times wrote that “she was a New Yorker and not an aristocrat at all”, despite “the mythmaking that is so much of the magic of the beauty industry”. Her “favourite story was that she had been brought up by her Viennese mother in fashionable Flushing, Long Island, in a sumptuous home with stables, a chauffeured car and an Italian nurse.”

In 1898, Rose moved from Hungary to the United States with her five children to join her first husband, Abraham Rosenthal. She married Max Mentzer, a shopkeeper who had also come to the U.S. in the 1890s, in 1905. When their daughter was born, they considered naming her Eszti, a nickname for Eszter, after Rose’s favorite aunt. At the last minute, they chose to keep the name “Josephine”. The baby was called “Estee”, which became the name she used throughout her life. Later, when she started her perfume business with her husband, she added an accent to her name to make it look French and pronounced it as her father did in his Hungarian accent.

Career

Lauder named one of her uncle’s products Super Rich All-Purpose Cream and started selling it to her friends. She also sold Six-In-One cold cream and Dr. Schotz’s Viennese Cream to beauty shops, beach clubs, and resorts. While getting her hair done at the House of Ash Blondes, the owner, Florence Morris, asked about her great skin. Estée later returned to the salon to give out samples of her uncle’s creams and show how to use them. Morris was so impressed that she invited Lauder to sell her products at her new salon.

In 1946, Estée and Joseph Lauder started the Estée Lauder Cosmetic Company at 501 Madison Avenue, New York City. The building was constructed in 1929 by Kohn, Knight & Vitolo.

In 1953, Lauder launched her first fragrance, Youth-Dew, which was a bath oil that also worked as a perfume. Instead of just dabbing perfume behind their ears, women started using Youth-Dew in their bath water. The product sold 50,000 bottles in its first year, and by 1984, sales had reached 150 million bottles.

In 1985, a TV documentary called Estée Lauder: The Sweet Smell of Success featured her story. When asked about her achievements, she said, “I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”

Awards and honors

On January 16, 1978, Lauder was awarded the Chevalier (Knight) class of the Legion of Honour by the Consul General of France, Gerard Causer. She was the first woman to receive this award.

She was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1988 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.

Personal life

In her early twenties, Estée met Joseph Lauter, whose father was from Austria. They married on January 15, 1930, and later changed their last name to Lauder. Their first son, Leonard, was born on March 19, 1933. The couple separated and divorced in 1939, and Estée moved to Florida, but they remarried in 1942. Their second son, Ronald, was born in 1944. Estée and Joseph stayed married until his death in 1983. Later, she said she regretted their divorce, explaining that she thoshe had missed out on life by marrying young, but realized s,he had the “sweetestand in the world”.

Leonard became the chief executive and later the chairman of Estée Lauder. Ronald served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration and was the U.S. Ambassador to Austria from 1986 to 1987. Since 2007, and continuing as of 2026, he has been president of the World Jewish Congress.

Death

Lauder died of cardiopulmonary arrest at her home in Manhattan on April 24, 2004, at the age of 95.