The Hindu : International : `She could have sold anything'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 28, 2004

International

International

`She could have sold anything'

By Laura Barton

LONDON, APRIL 27. ``When I met her it was 1973 and she absolutely terrified me. She was constantly looking round to see if there was anyone else more interesting in the room, and then she suddenly spritzed me with perfume and I sneezed. I said: `Oh, Mrs Lauder, I'm terribly sorry!''' Thus, Lindy Woodhead, author of War Paint, a biography of Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, recalls her first encounter with the grande dame of the cosmetics industry, Estee Lauder, who died this week at the age of 97.

Ms Lauder leaves behind a multi-billion dollar empire, and at the time of her death was listed in Forbes magazine as one of the 400 richest Americans. In 2000, half of the total cosmetics and fragrance sales in American department stores were notched up by Ms Lauder.

Yet, her own beginnings were a far cry from the fragrant environs of the cosmetics hall: the daughter of immigrants, she was born Josephine Esther Mentzer, in 1908, in Corona, a grimy part of Queens, New York, which was the stinking repository of the city's waste and manure. ``But of course, she claimed she was born in Long Island,'' laughs Ms Woodhead. ``They all reinvented themselves back then.''

Around 1942, Ms Lauder launched the Cream Pack, a very heavy moisturing face pack made from her Uncle Joe's recipe. Armed with this and a couple of items of makeup, she touted her wares around the beauty parlours and beach clubs of America.

``She didn't care for celebrity endorsement. Instead, she would give free gifts with purchases and she would give table gifts and auction prizes at ladies' luncheon clubs in Palm Beach and London, which was much more clever,'' notes Ms Woodhead.

Ms Lauder's heyday, however, was the 50s and 60s. ``1953 is the year,'' says Ms Woodhead. ``That was the year she launched Youth Dew. It was a very intense fragrance, very, very heavy, it used to hit you in the face. She made it as a bath oil and as a spritz.''

Until the 1950s, American women's approach to perfume had been restrained, using very light fragrances, with just a little dabbed behind the ears. ``It was very puritan. But Youth Dew coincided with the post-War era, when women were starting to go out to work. It sold by the bucketload.''

In her last few years, Ms Lauder lived quietly in New York, though her empire continued to flourish, and is the parent company behind many cosmetic brands — Clinique, Origins and Stila, to name but three.

The perpetual success of the Estee Lauder brand is testament to the business savvy of the woman herself. ``I think she'd have been a billionaire had she sold food, coal, cars — she could've sold anything. She was a genius,'' says Ms Woodhead. Even now, one imagines she is standing by the pearly gates, spritzing unsuspecting new arrivals. ``Will we ever see the like of her again?'' wonders Ms Woodhead. ``I don't think so now. She was very aggressive, very dynamic, she had real chutzpah.'' - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004.

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