Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder is an American beauty house founded in 1946 by Estée and Joseph Lauder, who launched the brand in New York with four products: a cleansing oil, a skin lotion, a creme pack, and the Super Rich All-Purpose Creme. The brand opened its first department-store counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1948 — a sales channel that became the model for prestige beauty retail in the United States — and spread internationally to Harrods in 1960.

The company introduced its first fragrance, Youth-Dew, in 1953 as a bath-oil and perfume hybrid that became one of the bestselling women's scents of its era. The line has since grown to include Pleasures, Beautiful, Modern Muse, Sensuous, Bronze Goddess, and Beyond Paradise, with Private Collection sitting at the top of the prestige tier.

The Estée Lauder Companies — the public holding company that operates the brand — went onto the New York Stock Exchange in 1995 and now ranks as the second-largest cosmetics group in the world after L'Oréal. The portfolio includes Clinique, MAC, Bobbi Brown, Le Labo, Tom Ford Beauty, Jo Malone London, and others, but the namesake Estée Lauder line — anchored by Advanced Night Repair serum — remains the company's flagship in skincare, color, and fragrance.