Fragrance house

Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder was officially launched by Estée and Joseph Lauder in 1946 with a small range of skincare and makeup, and secured its first major department-store order from Saks Fifth Avenue the following year. Estée Lauder built the business through personal demonstrations, customer education, samples, and word of mouth, practices that also underpinned its service and gift-with-purchase tradition. Under Estée Lauder’s oversight, the business expanded beyond the namesake line with Aramis, Clinique, Prescriptives, Lab Series, and Origins, creating the basis of a broader multi-brand beauty group. The Estée Lauder Companies went public on the New York Stock Exchange on November 16, 1995, while the Lauder family retained control of most of its stock. In June 2024, the company completed its acquisition of DECIEM, further broadening the group’s multi-brand identity. A major fragrance milestone came with Youth-Dew, introduced in 1953 as a bath oil that doubled as a skin perfume; it helped transform the young company into a multimillion-dollar business and helped shift fragrance toward everyday self-purchase.