Estée is from the French *Esthée* — a creative respelling of *Estée Mentzer's* original name **Josephine Esther Mentzer (1908-2004)** — daughter of a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant grocer in Queens, New York. **Estée Lauder — founded the eponymous cosmetics company in 1946 with her husband Joseph Lauder, beginning with four skin-care products in a single Saks Fifth Avenue counter**. **Today Estée Lauder Companies Inc. owns Clinique, MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Origins, Aveda, Tom Ford Beauty, Jo Malone London, Smashbox, and 20+ other beauty brands; 2023 revenue of $15.9 billion**. **The Estée Lauder "Youth Dew" bath oil (1953) was the first commercial scented oil sold in a perfume bottle and is credited with creating the modern fine-fragrance industry**. **Member of *Time* magazine's 100 Most Important People of the Century (1998) — the only woman on the business list**. **Presidential Medal of Freedom (2003)**. **"Telephone, Telegraph, Tell-A-Woman"** — her famous marketing maxim. **Estée Lauder Companies remains majority family-owned**.
Subject of Lauder's memoir *Estée: A Success Story* (1985).
Estée reduces to three — the number of cosmetics queen.