WoodyEstée Lauder
Estée Lauder founded her company in 1946 in New York with her husband Joseph, starting from a few skincare products. The brand entered perfumery in 1953 with Youth-Dew, a scented bath oil that was also used as a perfume, and whose selling point rested on a reversal of habit: a woman could buy her own perfume for herself. It has since been the flagship brand of The Estée Lauder Companies group.
Estée Lauder perfumes
Woody
Floral
Floral
Chypre
Floral
Floral
ChypreA skincare counter turned perfume house
Estée Lauder and Joseph Lauder launched their company in 1946 with a few skincare products, sold first door to door. The first department store counter opened at Saks in 1948, and the house built its network on this model of counter advice, with saleswomen trained by the brand.
Leonard A. Lauder, son of the founders, joined the company in 1958 and led its expansion outside the United States, with a counter at Harrods in London as early as 1960. Estée Lauder died in 2004; the company is listed in New York and the family retains control there.
Youth-Dew, a perfume sold as a skincare product
Youth-Dew launched in 1953 as a scented bath oil, composed with Joséphine Catapano, a perfumer at IFF. The form was no small detail: a perfume was then received as a gift from a husband, whereas a bath oil fell among a woman's ordinary purchases.
Its success led the house to release an extrait the same year. The composition, with accents of carnation, patchouli and balsams, remained one of the best-selling women's fragrances in the United States for decades, without meeting the same reception in Europe.
An American perfume house
Estée arrived in 1968, Azurée in 1969. The house has released a steady string of fragrances over several decades, including White Linen, Beautiful and Pleasures, each of which carried the brand to a new generation of customers.
The brand belongs to The Estée Lauder Companies group, which also owns Jo Malone London, Le Labo and The Ordinary. Stéphane de La Faverie, who joined the group in 2011 after Lancôme and Giorgio Armani, took over as chief executive on January 1, 2025.