Estée A Success Story

Childhood

I remember the woman at the Florence Morris Beauty Salon, where I had my first cosmetics concession. She was thoughtless and cruel and will always remain that way in my mind. Maybe she was a catalyst for good in the end; maybe I wouldn’t have become Estée Lauder if it hadn’t been for her. At the moment she was cast in my memory-to last there forever I despised her. Simply thinking about that incident brings back a twinge of pain.

She was having her hair combed and she was lovely. I was very young and vulnerable, and I loved beauty. I felt I wanted to make contact with her in some small way.

“What a beautiful blouse you’re wearing,” I complimented her. “It is just so elegant. Do you mind if I ask where you bought it?”

She smiled. “What difference could it possibly make?” she answered, looking straight into my eyes. “You could never afford it.”

I walked away, heart pounding, face burning.

Never, never… never will anyone say that to me again, I promised myself. Someday I will have whatever I want: jewels, exquisite art, gracious homes-everything.

This is an incredibly formative experience. She vows to basicaly never let another woman feel this way again.

Few of us are born with perfect features, which, fortunately, are not needed to radiate beauty. It is care, color, and glow that give the special quality. There are no homely women, only careless women. In all my travels I have never met a woman who couldn’t be radiant if she learned how to wield the power of makeup.

An interesting point: beauty is the best incentive to self-respect. You may have great inner resources, but they don’t show up as confidence when you don’t feel pretty. People are more apt to believe you and like you when you know you look fine. And when the world approves, selfrespect is just a little easier. The pursuit of beauty is honorable.

To her, beauty isn’t some shallow pursuit. It’s the deepest meaning. It’s a way to empower everyone with self-respect and confidence. I’m not sure I agree with her, but I defintely wouldn’t call her shallow. She is a true missionary.

There isn’t a culture in the world that hasn’t powdered, perfumed, and prettied its most adored and fabled women, its most respected women. Love has been planted, wars won, and empires built on beauty. I should know.

I’m an authority on all three. Love, wars, and empires have been woven into my personal tapestry for decades. I’ve been selling Beauty ever since I could recognize Her.

You can feel the confidence that radiates from her writing. This is a woman who is absolutely sure of herself and her capabilities - it’s a confidence that she’s earned over decades.

She was always jealous of my father’s youth, as well as a bit worried that he might find other women more attractive than she.

“Where are you going?” she’d ask apprehensively as he left the house, a dashing figure in his riding clothes.

An enigmatic response would ensue. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he’d answer. That’s all.

Silence. As soon as he left the house, my mother would begin brushing her hair. She was aware of her responsibility-yes, it is a responsibility to look as beautiful as she could. I think if every woman made up her face as if her lover or husband were ten years younger than she, we’d be a nation less prone to marital discord. My mother began brushing her golden hair in the morning even before she opened her eyes. I remember her reaching out for that brush as soon as she began to stir, the way business women today reach for their watches. Well, we have two hands, you know: you can reach for the brush with one, and for the watch, with the other.

After her mother divorced her first husband, she re-married a much younger man, and this was always a source of insecurity for her. But it’s interesting to see how old fashioned Estée is (she was born in 1908 after all). She very much views looking good as a moral obligation women have.

When she did die, at eighty eight, she was still beautiful and still certain of her appeal.

“You’re as beautiful as you think you are,” she’d tell me. She walked tall when she entered a room and held her head triumphantly. “The secret,” she’d whisper, “is to imagine yourself the most important person in that room, the person everyone else is waiting to see. If you imagine it vividly enough, you will become that person.”

Her style was remarkable. Her style was an art form. She was discreet, elegant, and deeply committed to family, particularly my father.

This is a philosophy she carries with her for the rest of her life. It’s very clear that her mother was extremely formative; Estée got her obsession with beauty from her other, after all.

When my father was a young man, Emperor Franz Joseph wanted his niece, who weighed about 300 pounds, to marry him, but somehow Father got out of that. He was waiting for Rose. Waiting, perfectionist that he was, for his ideal even though he had to elude the Emperor’s niece in the process. Along with his love for acquiring land, I also inherited his genes for high standards—things must be perfect to be acceptable. By perfect, I don’t mean expensive, necessarily, or vast or rare. I mean, well, perfect. As in the perfect phrase, the perfect gift.

300 pounds! This has to be an exaggeration; I didn’t think it was possible for people in the late 1800s to be that heavy.

My very first memory is of my mother’s scent, her aura of freshness, the perfume of her presence. My first sensation of joy was being allowed to reach up and touch her fragrant and satiny skin. Her hair didn’t escape my attention, either. As soon as I was old enough to hold a brush, I’d give her no peace. “Esty, you’ve already brushed my hair three times today,” I can still hear her complaining gently. My older sister, Renee, submitted to getting her face patted with my mother’s cream when she’d rather have been left alone to read or paint. Only my beautiful sister-in-law Fanny was perpetually saintlike in her submission to my “treatments.” She’d endure my brushing her long hair for what must have seemed like eons as stood on a kitchen chair to reach her head.

All of this annoyed my father considerably. “Stop fiddling with other people’s faces,” he’d say.

But that is what I liked to do—touch other people’s faces, no matter who they were, touch them and make them pretty. Before I’m finished, I’ll set, I’m certain, the world’s record for face touching.

From a very early age, she’s obsessed with brushing people’s hair, doing their makeup, and “touching faces”.

Pretty clothes were another passion, one that has not yet left me and, at this stage, is not likely to. I recall a knitted hat that a friend of my mother’s made for me. I was distinctly ungrateful because it was so plain. I asked her to add two pom-poms, one on either side of the hat. Nothing else would do. Even though the words “high fashion” had not yet entered my vocabulary, even though Givenchy was still in knee pants himself, I just knew instinctively that pom-poms would make that hat high fashion. Even at eight, being fashionable, being feminine, being different, was a raison d’être for me. And I was right. My teacher paraded me before another, older, class to my immense satisfaction, and I displayed, with appropriate grandeur, my beautiful pom-pommery. Even then I knew.

Eight years old! She found her passion early.

She spoke a very broken English, with a predominantly German accent, and we were at war with Germany during my childhood. Those foreign sounds fell on the unfriendly ears of those who had loved ones in the warand that was almost everyone. My mother seemed so old to me. And so old-fashioned.

I tried to discourage her from coming to school to speak with my teachers and other parents. I remember one friend’s mother reading fairy tales to us in her dulcet American tones. My mother wasn’t able to read anything to me. In fact, although my father spoke more English, both were European in every straightlaced way-and I wanted desperately to be 100 percent American.

So I was torn. I loved them both so much-their beauty and their character, but I didn’t love feeling different because of their old-country ways. I always seemed to be an apologist for them. On reflection, it seems that children strive to be like one another, while adults are always searching for the unusual, the different

I really feel for her mother. It can’t be easy having your daughter not evne want you to speak to the teachers or other parents. But as a first generation immigrant myself, I remember feeling very similar feelings. Ironically, it’s precisely that European heritage that she would be most famous for later on.

I was smitten with Uncle John. He understood me. What’s more, he produced miracles. I watched as he created a secret formula, a magic cream potion with which he filled vials and jars and flagons and other handy container. It was a precious velvety cream, this potion, one that magically made you sweetly scented, made your face feel like spun silk, made any passing imperfection be gone by evening. Maybe I’m glorifying my memories, but I believe today that I recognized in my Uncle John my true path. He produced his glorious cream in our home, working happily over a gas stove, mixing in first one ingredient, which he seemed to conjure up out of nowhere, then another, then another. I watched and learned, hypnotized. He mixed and stirred-as passionate as any alchemist-until the ingredients were transformed into cream. Snow cream.

He was aghast when I washed my face with soap. “Soap on the face? No! No soap, Estée darling, please. Soap is made with the harshest of detergents that dry.” But the gentle oil that he used in his cream was good. It cleansed, lubricated, and protected. Oil, he explained, could cut through the residue of the day as well as cleanse excess body oils that tended to clog pores.

Oil to do away with oil? It was a mystery to me. Uncle John explained.

[sic]

“Listen to me, Estée,” said Uncle John. “Just try my cream.” Try it? I was devoted to it. I loved his creams, loved his potions, loved my Uncle John, who was going to stay in America-near me. In fact, he eventually opened his own, small office for his European clientele in Manhattan.

This is the story of a bewitchment. I was irrevocably bewitched by the power to create beauty.

Uncle John had worlds to teach me. We constructed a laboratory of sorts in the tiny stable behind the house. My parents installed gleaming linoleum on the floors and walls. We set up a table, where I watched my uncle mix his magic.

Do you know what it means for a young girl to suddenly have someone take her dreams quite seriously? Teach her secrets?

I could think of nothing else. After school, I’d run home to practice being a scientist. I began to value myself so much more, trust my instincts, trust my uniqueness. With my uncle I was preoccupied with research into possibilities-mine. Trusting oneself does not always come naturally. If learned when young, the practice sticks. Today, there is no one who can intimidate me because of title or skill or fame. I do what’s right for me.

This is an extremely endearing scene. Her entire family was rather sick of her ‘face-touching’ and obsession with makeup and the like. Uncle John alone encouraged her and taught her. Uncle John’s fomulas would be the first set she would try and actively sell.

I’d treat her to a Creme Pack—voilà!-vastly improved skin the next day. Friends of friends of friends appeared. I devised a name for my uncle’s cream—Super-Rich All Purpose Creme. My reputation among my peers at Newtown High School grew by leaps and bounds. I gave away gallons of cream to friends!

Deep inside, I knew I had found something that mattered much more than popularity. My moment had come and I was not about to miss seizing it. Uncle John loved me, I loved him, and my future was being written in a jar of snow cream.

This snow cream would be her first product, and it would take her quite far.

Business

One day Mrs. Morris said to me, “What do you do to keep your skin looking so fresh and lovely?” It would turn out to be a question of great moment for me.

I didn’t have to be asked twice. “The next time I come,” I said, “I’ll bring some of my products.” My heart was pounding. Although Mrs. Morris had asked a very innocent question, my mind began to race with a Great Idea. There are great ideas and Great Ideas.

In less than a month, earlier than my regular appointment time, I was back at the House of Ash Blondes with four jars, on which only everything rested.

“Would you mind leaving them with me?” she asked as I offered her my four products. “I’m so busy now. I’ll try them when I have time, Mrs. Lauder.”

I knew better. “Just let me show you how they work, Mrs. Morris,” I said. “Give me just five minutes and you’ll see the right way to use them.”

Nothing could have induced me to leave my bounty without a demonstration. First I applied some extra fine Cleansing Oil to Mrs. Morris’ face, then gently removed it. Then, before she could change her mind, I patted on my Creme Pack. Her face began to glow almost instantly.

The Creme Pack, by the way, is still one of my biggest sellers. It doesn’t harden like masques, which usually have to be scraped off. Instead, it can be removed easily with tissues. The original magic potion, my uncle’s Super-Rich All Purpose Creme, followed. After tissuing that off, I applied a light skin lotion. Those were the staples of my repertoire. I brushed her face with the lightest and softest of face powders, which Uncle John and I had just developed, then on her cheeks and lips I used a bit of the new glow I had been testing.

Fini. I showed Mrs. Morris a mirror. She was a raving beauty.

Silence. She was thinking. “Do you think you would be interested in running the beauty concession at my new salon at 39 East Sixtieth Street?” she asked.

I did not hesitate a second. Up until that point, I had been giving away my products. This was my first chance at a real business. I would have a small counter in her store. I would pay her rent; whatever I sold would be mine to keep. No partners (I never did have partners). I would risk the rent, but if it worked, I would start the business I always dreamed about. Risk taking is the cornerstone of empires. No one ever became a success without taking chances. Yes, yes, yes, Mrs. Morris! I was interested.

She intuitively understand the power of demonstration and the magic of insistence. She was not going to walk out of there without a demonstration. When you have a quality product, you believe in it.

A woman sitting under the dryer would be rather bored with the time it took to dry her hair. Her restlessness would work for me. I’d ask her to let me try a special cream on her face-free of charge. I promised it would make her skin feel pampered and soft, would make her skin feel silky. Of course, she would agree. She had nothing else to do under that dryer. When her hair had dried, but before it was combed out, I would remove the cream and quickly make up her face before she had a chance to think about it.

Again, nobody is teaching her this. She just immediately grasps the power of a captive audience. I might as well do your face since you’re just sitting there with nothing better to do!

Now, the big secret: I would give the woman a sample of whatever she did not buy as a gift. It might be a few teaspoonfuls of powder in a wax envelope. Perhaps I’d shave a bit off the tip of a lipstick and tell her to apply it with her fingers. Perhaps, in still another envelope, I would give her a bit of glow. The point was this: a woman would never leave emptyhanded. I did not have an advertising department. I did not have a copywriter, but I had a woman’s intuition. I just knew, even though I had not yet named the technique, that a gift with a purchase was very appealing. In those days, I would even give a gift without a purchase.

The idea was to convince a woman to try a product. Having tried it at her leisure in her own home and seeing how fresh and lovely it made her look, she would be faithful forever. Of that I had not one single doubt.

My clientele grew.

She is an absolute business savant. As she herself admits, she had no teacher, no copywriter, nothing. Just intuition.

Word spread. Business moved gradually, but steadily. I worked every day from nine, when I arrived to polish my jars, to six in the evening. I never lunched. I felt I had to be there for every woman or I would surely lose her.

This is a theme that comes across consistently in the book. She was moving with a sense of urgency all the time. Every lunch hour was crucial. When the women came in to the salons (primarily during lunch), she had to capture every woman. Every potential customer.

During a short vacation I’d made up a few women at poolside. The response was electric. In the next few years I’d spend some weeks alone at the Lido or Grand Hotel on what might be dubbed working vacations. Many women would gather and ask me to teach them about skin care and cosmetics. It was fun for them and profitable for me. I dressed as they did, as elegantly as I knew how. In my day there were no courses on dressing for success, but I knew I had to look my best to sell my best. The hotel owners welcomed the diversion I provided. It cost them nothing, and my services were more enthusiastically received than an entertainer’s. Women wanted to learn, not laugh at silly jokes. One summer after another, I pushed myself, lauding creams, making up women, selling beauty. In the winters, I’d visit these eager ladies at their homes, where, with a bridge game as a backdrop, I’d make up their friends and sell more creams. The mood at these sessions was as exhilarating for me as for them. I didn’t need bread to eat, but I worked as though I did… from pure love of the venture.

I love this scene. Even when she goes on vacation, she’s always in business mode. It reminded me of Sam Walton’s autobiography - anytime he took his family anywhere, it was mandatory that they visit the local Walmart or stake out the competition.

Marriage

Here is a lesson I have learned: whether you are a businesswoman or housewife, attention must be paid to your mate. If a marriage is to succeed, whether or not a man is successful in his chosen field, whether or not a woman is, she must take exquisite care to make her man feel strong and important-and then he will be strong and important. Let’s hope he does the same for her. Success, happiness, contentment, are self-fulfilling prophecies. This is a lesson I learned, and there was grief in the learning.

Wise words. Estée and Joe were really the first entrepreneurial couple where the woman was the face, the CEO, and the obvious leader. Joe was a homemaker who took a supporting role. And this was in the 1930s! That can’t have been easy on either of them.

I filed for divorce in Florida. Joe was heartsick, but after many, many impassioned conversations, he complied. It was 1939 when we officially parted.

But we were never really apart. I was ostensibly a free woman, but I saw my ex-husband often. He was, after all, my best friend. We had our adored son. We had our inescapable deep love. For a while I had gay and giddy fun-dressing up, going out on dates, flirting outrageously. There were some romantic interludes, in the true sense of the word-romantic. Impassioned affairs were out of the question in my world in the forties. Sexual freedom was decades away.

They end up divorcing because she is obsessed with her business. All their friends call him Mrs. Lauder and make fun. She’s always going off to parties, and her business is starting to be successful. Often they all recognize her, and sometimes she even forgets to introduce him. She’s swept up in the liveliness of the party, and he’s an introvert.

For the first time in years, Joe stayed the night. We shared the same room. The following night he was still there, and the following.

On the fourth night Joe sat me down in the living room. “Estée, what are we doing to ourselves?” he asked. “We should be together.”

I thought long and hard. What am I doing to myself? I have a man who loves me and whom I love in every important way. We have a child. We trust each other. I can’t go on without this man by my side.

“I know I made a great mistake,” I told him. “Forgive me.”

We kissed.

There were no canes this time, no calla lilies, no picture in the rotogravure. Instead, we went to City Hall in 1943. Our marriage was to become, for me at any rate, one of the greatest love stories of all time.

Joe comes back home because Leonard is deathly sick at one point. This whole time they are still in love, still seeing each other. They just needed the tools to communicate their needs to each other properly. After this, Joe gets involved in the the family business, and she’s far more inclusive of him. It’s really nice to see a couple actually work through their problems.

I’ll always remember coming home at night and not having that one, sweet, trusted someone with whom to share my deep thoughts, my secrets. You cannot fly on one wing. I feel compelled to tell you what I’ve learned about divorce.

It’s far too easy to say goodbye in America. In so many cases, when women marry again, they only change the face, not the problems. Too many divorced friends find that their second husband, or even their third husband, has more faults than their first husband, who looks better and better on someone else’s arm. I always try to talk people out of divorcing. People divorce these days as fast as they change hair color.

Agreed. Old school opinions, but I totally agree with her.

Taking Off

The most insidious myth of all is the one that promises magic formulas and instant success. It does not happen that way. I cried more than I ate. There was constant work, constant attention to detail, lost hours of sleep, worries, heartaches. Friends and family didn’t let a day go by without discouraging us.

“Estée, what do you need this for? Stay home with your darling family…” They meant well. Despite all the nay sayers, there was never a single moment when I considered giving up. That was simply not a viable alternative.

Remember that all through this period, her business is doing well. Success and tears is what the success case looks like; and the entire time, her family and friends are trying to spare her pain by discouraging her. Anytime you deviate from the socially accepted norm, people who love and care for you will, with the best of intentions, try and ruin you. It takes a certain independence of mind and callousness to ignore these voices.

Though I have read repeatedly that “Estée Lauder built a fortune from nothing,” the assertion is wrong, wrong, wrong. Do not let the Pollyannas mislead you. One simply cannot start from zero. If you want to start your own business, save some money or know someone who can lend you some.

You may not need a huge amount, but those first bills must be covered and then some. When I began, business practice was based on CBD cash before delivery-not COD. The same holds true in many cases today.

The American dream is powerfully enticing, but it is a dream. One does not move from rags-poof-to riches by dreaming or by starting from zero. Henry Ford did begin building cars in a wooden shed with a door too small to allow the car through, but I guarantee he had some money to buy the shed or even the parts for the car. One could say that Estée Lauder Cosmetics started in a stable, but there was a lovely house in front of that tiny stable and a father with some means who had confidence in his daughter. Hard work, ingenuity, and inspiration are unquestionably important, but so is a little help, or a little savingsJoe’s savings, I might add.

Very, very smart. This isn’t some brash story where she risks the entire fortune and all her family’s assets. She proves herself each step of the way and incrementally builds an empire brick by brick. There are no shortcuts.

“Papa, I know how to do it,” I would assure my worried father. “They’re coming from all over to buy my creams. I have ideas that no one else ever had.”

He knew it was so, even though his refrain was, “When is this going to end?”

The family never understands. That’s okay - go forward anyway.

Needless to say, the jar had to be beautiful. And this was the hard partit couldn’t clash with my customers’ bathroom decors.

At the time, T. C. Wheaton was the company that specialized in the finest glass containers. Having obtained sample jars, my research consisted of matching the few colors to which I had narrowed my choices to wallpapers in every guest bathroom I could manage to visit. I would fill my evening purse with a few small sample jars. Every time I went to a friend’s home or even an elegant restaurant, I’d excuse myself from the company, visit the bathroom, and match my jar colors against a vast array of wallpapers. There were silver bathrooms, purple bathrooms, black and white bathrooms, brown bathrooms, gold bathrooms, pink bathrooms-even red bathrooms. Which color would look wonderful in any bathroom? I deliberated for weeks. I spent an inordinate amount of time “freshening up.” People must have worried about my long absences from the company. Finally, I had it. There was a single, delicate, different, cool color I had loved from the first. It wasn’t blue, it wasn’t green. It was somewhere in between-a fragile, pale turquoise that was memorable. It was also perfect with every wallpaper, in the grandest of homes as well as in the most modest. I knew that women would not buy cosmetics in garish containers that offended their bathroom decor: I wanted them to be proud to display my products. The jars had to send a message of luxury and harmony. They had to be unique. A great package does not copy or study. It invents.

I love how obsessive she is. Going into bathrooms at every party and comparing which jar would look best is - and I mean this in the most complimentary way I can - true psycopath behavior. I adore her for it.

She stopped directly in front of the counter and gazed wistfully at the gleaming jars.

Large pores, I thought to myself.

Then she pointed to one jar and looked up expectantly, I was about to assist her when the salesperson tapped me on the shoulder. “Not her, Mrs. Lauder,” she whispered. “Don’t waste your time. She’s not going to buy anything. I know her type. I live around here.”

I remember whirling around to tap the salesperson on her own shoul der. “Since when do you know how much money she has in her pocketbook?” I asked quietly.

The Mexican woman brightened as she saw me approach. She pointer again to the Super-Rich Moisturizing Creme. Good taste. I liked that woman.

I went to work. First the Cleansing Oil, which I patted on and immediately tissued off. Then the Creme Pack, which I left on for a minute, then removed. I applied just a bit of my Super-Rich All Purpose Creme, worked it in, and removed the excess. Then I brushed a bit of blusher on her cheeks to give definition to her round face, patted on some powder, added just a touch of Duchess Crimson lipstick-and handed her a mirror.

She stared and stared, then smiled. Her strong and gracious face, set off by a gloriously hued serape, was positively radiant. She couldn’t speak English. I couldn’t speak Spanish. Still, at that moment I felt such a bond with that woman as she and I both marveled at the miracles of twentieth-century makeup.

You know the ending to this story before I write it. She opened her sagging black purse. It was literally overflowing with dollars-not a sign of a peso anywhere. She bought two of everything I’d used on her face, and the next day her relatives did the same.

I never forgot her. She symbolized so much for me. Never be patronizing, never underestimate any woman’s desire for beauty. That proud woman embodies my whole philosophy. I would be on the road for the rest of my life, in a way, always touching faces, always making the sale that others said was impossible.

This is one story I’m not sure I believe; it definitely serves as a wonderful foil to the opening story in the book - the negative experience that shaped her so much. But it just feels a little too perfect, if you know what I mean. In any case, I certainly agree with the principle - do not be condescending to any potential customer, no matter what you think their purchasing power is.

Actually, the sample was the most honest way to do business. You give people a product to try. If they like its quality, they buy it. They haven’t been lured by an advertisement but convinced by the product itself. Not that we never tried to go the advertising route in the beginning. Why wouldn’t we? We tried everything.

We had asked a friend to recommend an advertising agency. BBD and O wasn’t interested. They wouldn’t take us on. No one would. We had far too little money to spend-nothing, in their minds.

We decided to go back to the samples. We took the money we had planned to use on advertising and invested it instead in enough material to give away large quantities of our products. It was so simple that our competitors sneered when they heard what we were doing. Today, even the banks are copying us.

It’s important to remember that samples were a contrarian approach back then! Most people didn’t do samples at all, and the ones that did only used the rejects as samples to save cost. Estée is out her using the best of the best as samples; is there any wonder why she gets such strong word of mouth?

Incidentally, the merchandise we gave and give away is our prime merchandise, the best, the top of our line. Later, many other companies jumped on our bandwagon to offer gifts, but what they were giving away were their mistakes-the colors that didn’t sell last season, the ineffective creams that died on the counter, last year’s failures. They tried to unload their lemons on customers; many still do. Bad business, I say. How can you expect a customer to return for more if you’ve given your worst, even for free?

Before they copied me, they scoffed. Once, an executive of Charles of the Ritz walked into Lord & Taylor, put a giveaway travel-sized box of powder in his pocket, and quietly said to the buyer, “She’ll never get ahead. She’s giving away the whole business.” Well, today Squibb owns Charles of the Ritz, and I’m still very much around, still “giving away” my business.

Exactly.

Business is not something to be lightly tried on, flippantly modeled. It’s not a distraction, not an affair, not a momentary fling. Business marries you. You sleep with it, eat with it, think about it much of your time. It is, in a very real sense, an act of love. If it isn’t an act of love, it’s merely work, not business.

What makes a successful businesswoman? Is it talent? Well, perhaps, although I’ve known many enormously successful people who were not gifted in any outstanding way, not blessed with particular talent. Is it, then, intelligence? Certainly, intelligence helps, but it’s not necessarily education or the kind of intellectual reasoning needed to graduate from the Wharton School of Business that are essential. How many of your grandfathers came here from one or another “old country” and made a mark in America without the language, money, or contacts? What, then, is the mystical ingredient?

It’s persistence. It’s that certain little spirit that compels you to stick it out just when you’re at your most tired. It’s that quality that forces you to persevere, find the route around the stone wall. It’s the immovable stubbornness that will not allow you to cave in when everyone says give up.

We’ve talked about persistence more times than I can count at this point. So far, Joe Coulombe, Bill Rosenberg, Marc Randolph, Rockefeller, Ray Kroc, Jensen, Paul Allen, Paul Graham, James Dyson, and Bezos have all mentioned it as the primary attribute they value - over intelligence.

This first sentence also reminds me of Rockefeller - “this casual way of conducting affairs did not appeal to me”. Business is a serious pursuit.

I started late. I didn’t have the time for waiting, nor, I guess, the disposition. By the way, it is never too late to start a business, you know, just as it is never too late to make yourself beautiful. Women of a certain age are seasoned enough to bypass certain frivolities, certain temptations. They can focus on their interests more steadily than their youthful counterparts. It takes a certain tunnel vision, the ability to look directly ahead until the daylight is in sight. Older women are not quite as easily distracted. Whether they’ve decided to improve their faces or their fortunes, women are usually more successful when, believe it or not, they have an advantage of years.

This might be the best quote in the entire book.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re concentrating with passion on a project, you start hearing or reading about things germane to that project? Perhaps it’s because your antennae are up, but I always considered it fascinating to note how the world around me responds to my particular current interests.

Yes! This is why it’s better to not have optionality. Deeply immerse yourself into a single project. Let your brain operate to its fullest on one, focused initiative. Do not hedge.

He curtly informed me of his intention to buy my business so that he could be the Cadillac of the cosmetics industry. I replied lightly that I thought his intention quite flattering, but that I would like to buy his business and be the Rolls Royce of the industry. Not known for his sense of humor, he stalked away without answering. War was declared. “I’ll destroy her,” he told some mutual friends.

People think they can eat you up and swallow you whole. The head of Fabergé, Mr. Sam Rubin, once asked me the same question: Was I for sale? He’d like to buy our business.

“You don’t know much about cosmetics. Perfume is your specialty,” I answered. “Why buy my business? I’ll buy yours.”

Something about this answer seemed to drive men wild. “Little girl,” he answered in a tone that was patronizing even for those prefeminist days, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You haven’t counted what I have,” I said as coldly as I could manage. “What’s more, although I haven’t counted what you have, I don’t think you could come up with the down payment for my business.”

I love the confidence. She was not phased in the slightest by operating in a man’s world.

There is no such thing as bad times, I kept telling myself. There is no such thing as bad business. Business is there if you go after it.

This reminds me of Mrs. B who would roll her eyes at people who whined about doing business during the Great Depression. There was just absolutely no tolerance of complaining.

Career women in every age, I don’t care how powerful and effective they are, will always have the problem of juggling priorities. It’s not easy, but take heart, it’s possible to handle many things at once. My family has always taken precedence over all other things, but I have never felt the need to choose between family and business. I could, I would, I have both. Perhaps I missed some small part of my sons’ growing up, perhaps I was not there at one or two crucial moments, but I was building something for all of us. I called home every night. I kept in constant touch when I was on the road. I even called my own parents almost every night to allay their worries. You’re never too grown-up to stop being a child to your parents. In each of us is the seed of the child we were and the adult we will become. To our parents, the differences are blurred.

It was an enormous solace to know that Joe was home with the boys every night. We had an excellent housekeeper as well—not excellent enough ever to really satisfy me-but the best alternative to me I could find. Today, so many women are searching for the same alternative as they juggle home and career. I wish them well!

This is great advice to all women. Women definitely have it harder than men if they want to have a career. But it is possible to have both. You just need to plan more carefully - no getting around that.

Recently I had occasion to meet Mr. Robert Sakowitz, now the store president, who told me he’d never forgotten the day when he, as a young boy working for his father, saw me slip off my shoes-and get them back on in a matter of three seconds flat.

I’d take even less time today. It wasn’t youth that made me so energetic, it was enthusiasm. That’s why I know a woman of any age has it within her to begin a business or a life’s work of any sort. It’s a fresh outlook that makes youth so attractive anyway, that quality of anything’s possible. That spirit is not owned only by those under thirty. Selling, especially, is an art form that depends on spiritand honesty.

Enthusiasm and passion - not age - determine success.

Bottles of perfumes were displayed so proudly-unopened. Why didn’t women use their perfume? I wondered. Why did it take a special occasion to open a bottle of scent? Most perfumes, I knew, would evaporate down to an unpleasantly pungent base while waiting to be used on these rare occasions.

I knew what the trouble was. Perfume was the perfect gift. That was killing it.

Only a rare woman would walk into a department store and buy perfume for herself. Traditionally, women in America were passive about smelling wonderful. It was proper to wait for your loved one to present you with a bottle of something he liked, or something that he thought you might like. And if you had no such loved one? It was unthinkable, self-indulgent, narcissistic, and even decadent to treat yourself to fragrance. Oh, you could buy an inexpensive bottle of cologne. Nothing more significant.

This part was astonishing to me. Today, it’s taken for granted that women would buy their own perfume. Choosing how you want to smell is one of the most important parts of expressing your individuality - right next to choosing how you dress. But once upon a time, that wasn’t so. Men chose how a woman smelled. It was seen as gaudy for women to buy their own perfume. Estée would change all of that. She literally created a category.

How could I get the American woman to buy her own perfume? I would not call it perfume. I would call it Youth Dew. A bath oil that doubled as a skin perfume. That would be acceptable to buy because it was feminine, all-American, very girl-next-door to take baths, wasn’t it? A woman could buy herself a bottle of bath oil the way she’d buy a lipstick-without feeling guilty, without waiting for her birthday, anniversary, graduation, without giving tiresome hints to her husband. I believe that advances for women got a boost when a woman felt free to dole out some of her own dollars for her own choice of scents.

This is just genius level product creation.

Instead of using their French perfumes by the drop, behind each ear, women were using Youth Dew by the bottle in their bath water.

It doesn’t take a graduate of business school to figure out that meant sales, beautiful sales, for Joe and me. In 1953 Youth Dew did about $50,000 worth of business for us. In 1984 that figure had jumped to over a $150 million dollars.

From a brand new category to 150 million dollars of revenue in a single year! This is slightly less than $500 million today by the way.

The best way to apply fragrance, I discovered and taught my customers, is to spray it into the air in front of you and to walk into it. Wearing perfume is like loving. You can’t be stingy. You have to give yourself abundantly, not a little here and there. I knew there was more to perfume than a pretty scent; there has to be an idea behind it. Fragrance exists in the mind, not just in the nose.

Estée didn’t invent this, but she absolutely popularized it. It’s astonishing to think about how many things were first made or popularized by her.

If you are within arm’s reach of me, and I am testing a new fragrance, I’ll rub a generous amount, not a skimpy drop, inside your palm and ask how you like it. The truth is, I won’t pay too much attention to your answer. I’ll watch your eyes. If they come alive with pleasure, it’s a yes. Certainly, if I rub some perfume on your hand, politeness will take hold of you, and even if you hate it, you’ll murmur, “Mmmm, yes, it’s lovely,” but your eyes won’t lie. If they stay dull, if they don’t dance with wonder, back to a new vial I’ll go. I ask elevator operators, taxi drivers, society women, princes, professors, “Do you like this? Would your wife like it?” And their eyes answer.

Again, nobody is teacher her this. Just astonishingly intuitive. We take this for granted when doing product development today, but she’s doing this back in the 1940’s.

If there was frenzied competition in the fragrance arena, the competition often served to whet our appetites. There is something very heady, very stimulating in beating out the competition. It can exhilarate, propel. What a feeling when you hit the counters three days before a competitor!

She really loves the game, and she absolutely loves winning.

I hear too many superwomen say that family seems to be superfluous today. Pity. Who knows better than I how important it is to be selfsufficient? Who is more fully convinced of the value of a woman’s independence? No one.

Despite my belief in independence and self-sufficiency, a family or intimate friends add so much texture to one’s life. It doesn’t have to be blood family . the family I speak of. I know many marvelous women who had “adopted” beloved friends to be the family with whom they share joys and griefs. I hate to be close-minded about it: I suppose many manage to live relatively solitary lives with happiness, and certainly there are female superachievers today who go it alone by choice. But for me, there had to be a balance of family. Joe’s massive shoulder was there for me to cry on; his smile helped me to rejoice. We took care of each other’s problems. If there was someone to fire, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it, Joe took over. Success simply wouldn’t have been as sweet nor setbacks as easy to bear if it weren’t for Joe.

I think modernity has gone too far with being self sufficient and independent.

Each generation of my family brings new dimensions and new energy to what began as a little girl’s insatiable love of beauty in all things.

They’re all gone now — the people who founded the great companies of beauty. Only I am left. Revson was replaced by that fine gentleman Michael Bergerac. Elizabeth Arden left her company in turmoil when she died in 1966 without having set her affairs in order. When Helena Rubinstein died in 1965, Colgate-Palmolive took the reins until 1980. Charles of the Ritz is now owned by Squibb, Germaine Monteil by Beecham, and Max Factor by Beatrice.

The personal love and involvement are gone; they’re companies now, not a family’s heart and soul.

It won’t happen to Estée Lauder.

Our company has developed a life and momentum all its own-a dedication to the dream. There’s a whole new generation waiting to take the reins of Estée Lauder when its turn comes. My two grandsons, William and Gary, and my two granddaughters, Aerin and Jane, are sharpening their skills and their passions for excellence. They have beauty on their minds.

Unfortunately, it would and did happen to Estée Lauder. It is now a public company, of which the Lauder family only owns around 40%. Her son Leonard who was the next CEO unfortunately passed away just a couple months ago in June of this year at a healthy 92 years of age. He was CEO until 1999. Perhaps most famously, he is responsible for creating the rather famous lipstick index.

Europe

Not so simple. Nothing is ever simple. What a blunder. I’d gone over her head and bypassed channels by speaking to the buyer’s boss before I spoke with her. She wouldn’t give me the opportunity to say two more words.

Simply not interested was the unmistakable message.

Selfridge’s was available to me, but it wasn’t the most prestigious store in London at that time. I turned them down.

She is so conscious the entire time that the brand represents the pinnacle of quality. She cannot tarnish the reputation by associating with cheaper stores, no matter how desparate she is for sales. A masterclass.

Estée Lauder appeared, almost invisibly, at last.

It was not a victory yet. I visited every one of the beauty editors again, to remind them of me. Another round of makeups. Another round of samples. “Do you think you might write another piece?” I asked each one. “Now that we’re in London at Harrods?”

The articles appeared.

Customers also appeared. I was on my way. Women began asking for Estée Lauder. The Harrods buyer was reluctant to notice, but she had no choice.

In the flush of a good week’s sales, I summoned up courage to ask if she could give me a more important counter. “This is such a good line. You see how it’s moving, and we have a wonderful new fragrance called Youth Dew…”

As I spoke, I dared to open a bottle and quickly touch a drop-just a drop of Youth Dew to her hand; it could make her furious. It might―-just might—pique her interest. A calculated risk.

“What’s this all about?” she asked with some irritation.

“Youth Dew is about a bath oil that doubles as a skin perfume; it’s nondrying and it’s taking America by storm. Please, won’t you take this bottle home?”

“Oh, no,” she said, “I never do that. You should know that by now, Mrs. Lauder. And other counter space is definitely not available.”

But I left the Youth Dew on her desk. And she pretended not to notice. I will never know if she took it home. About six months later, I made my third trip to London.

“Well, we seem to have many London women asking for your products,” she grudgingly admitted. “I think I’ll give you a small spot at a more prestigious counter,”

And that’s how Estée Lauder came to Europe.

Such a genius play. She’s frighteningly intuitive.

I tried to sell Youth Dew to Galeries Lafayette, one of the great department stores in France, and the buyer would have none of it. Youth Dew… when there was Chanel? The buyer wouldn see me.

I became friendly with one of the girls who was selling something else. While I was showing her my Youth Dew, a good bit of the bath oil spilled on the floor. They said later that I did it on purpose. I’ll never tell.

I just left it there. Customers came and went. The fragrance was sweet and heavy in the air.

“What is that scent?” asked many.

“I don’t know,” replied the salesperson. “A woman from America was showing it to me. She accidentally spilled some on the floor. That’s what you’re smelling.”

Whenever the buyer passed the counter, all that day and the next day as well, that beautiful fragrance lingered. He also overheard all the customers asking, “What’s that I smell?? It’s gorgeous!!” (in French naturally).

Finally, the French understood I was selling something other than treatment products. Actually, I think they owe me a great debt. Perhaps it sounds immodest, but I have no doubt that I expanded the perfume market significantly by convincing women they didn’t have to wear perfume only on special occasions but could wear it every day of their lives.

Obviously that’s genius. But I love the confidence to assert that she did the French a favor by doing this. I think I’m in love with this woman.

Men’s Skincare

In the winter, Joe would come in from a brisk walk with a red and raw face.

“Please use some of my face cream,” I begged. “Here, I’m turning into a cosmetics tycoon and my own husband’s face hurts.”

He declined all offers. I knew I’d have a difficult time selling skin care to men if my husband’s behavior was any indication of masculine reluctance. Well, here was another challenge I couldn’t resist. I was also not satisfied with the way most men smelled. Joe’s aftershave lotion was mostly alcohol-nonsoothing, nonpleasing, definitely not terrific. The lotions used in barber shops were either sickeningly sweet or smelled strongly of chemicals. Hair lotion for the rich and famous as well as the poor and not so famous was Vitalis. If ever there was a real need…

I love this angle - she’s basically saying Joe you think you smell fine, but let me tell you as the person who is doing the smelling of you, it could be improved.

We also changed the look of the line. The Aramis products, you’ll note, are packaged in tortoiseshell wrappings. I had a magnificent tortoiseshell fan. The design always seemed so richly masculine to me. Everyone said, “Too busy, Mrs. Lauder. It will detract from the bottle to have all those shadings of brown and gold on the package.” I wasn’t interested in a committee vote. When I knew something was right, I ran with it.

Do away with committees. Committees suck.

We moved slowly, as usual. Since we were a family-owned business, since we didn’t have investors to contend with, we didn’t have to apologize to anyone if we didn’t show immediate profits. New lines and new forays like Aramis cost money in research, design, and promotion. It could take four or five years to turn a new venture from the red into the black. Getting Aramis on the counter cost about $250,000, not an insubstantial amount of money in those days. Of that amount, $20,000 was spent on package design. This is not a completely utilitarian society. There’s a certain total pleasure in the look of a product. It is a sales tool.

This is what I love about founders. High conviction, bet it all. 250k for a small family owned business is a lot. But she trusts her gut and moves forward.

We didn’t make that $250,000 back in the first year, I can assure you. I believe only a privately owned company could consider risking a large amount of money on a new, untried product like a men’s toiletries line. If shareholders were involved, we’d have to show a steady, inexorably upward rise in profit if offering prices were not to be affected. Joe always told me to move slowly. We could afford that luxury because we owned ourselves, and always will, as long as I have something to say about it.

The most impressive part of this is that the initial launch still flops. They then do some more research to figure out why and fix it. Only then does it take off. Don’t expect what you do to instantly be a hit, but if you truly believe in something you have to prove it by overcoming obstacles.

Hypoallergenics

Why did we market Clinique under its own name rather than under the umbrella of Estée Lauder? Many people have asked me this question.

For one thing, we didn’t want to confuse the customer. We were offering something new; we didn’t want her to think it was like any other co metic she’d ever tried before. Second, we didn’t want anyone to say that Estée Lauder had a nonallergenic line. It would have hurt Estée Lauder to have anyone make the very wrong assumption that we’d come out with a hypoallergenic line because there was something allergenic about our main line. Third, combining two different lines under one umbrella wouldn’t allow for each to grow strongly as a separate entity.

Leonard was quite correct when he said we would be our own best competition. The best way of competing was with two companies, not two products under a parent name.

Very similar to James Dyson explicitly not advertising that his vaccuums could also be dry cleaners. It only pollutes the message and confuses the customer.

No cosmetics company in America had ever launched a complete line, full-blown. The customary marketing device was that one successful product bank-rolled another and then another. With Clinique, we funded a full line, all at once. What a chance to take! We launched Clinique with 117 items.

Incredibly impressive. Another first!

We opted for a computer long before the word became a household word. We wanted customer participation — something that would give her information about what product would work best on her particular skin. The computer asked questions to elicit basic information that most trained skin specialists use to analyze skin types today. Before Dr. Orentreich, Clinique, and the computer, no one bothered. Salespeople chose for you. The decision, in the hands of an untrained salesperson, was often not based on the customer’s real need or history. Our computer, which then was just a question and answer board, took the customer’s individual differences into prime consideration.

If a customer requested something that would be wrong for her, we wouldn’t sell it. That is the truth. If a woman came to the Clinique counter and said, “I want that Clarifying Lotion,” the salesperson was instructed to say, “Wait, wait a moment. First we have to see if your skin can tolerate it.” After listening to the customer’s history, she might conclude that no, the customer’s fragile skin would not do well with that particular lotion.

“I want it. I’ll see the manager,” the customer might answer. And she would. The manager would then call Carol Phillips directly.

“Don’t sell it,” Carol would advise. “You’ll be sorry. The customer will be sorry and we will be sorry. That lotion is only for a very strong skin.”

We were resolute in this matter. Of course, we lost a few customers, who were annoyed at not being sold what they requested. Still, not only our integrity was at stake. Selling blindly and without justification was bad business and would only hurt us in the end. The customer simply wouldn’t return for more bad advice.

This is just obvious today, but she really was the first to provide personalized recommendations based on her quiz and computer. Over and over she keeps innovating. So many firsts.

A critical skill, product forecasting is a very technical and important estimate necessary in the marketing of any product. If we forecast too much, we’d be choking in inventory. If we forecast too little, we’d run out of merchandise in no time at all. We spent so much money on Clinique, money that would be lost if there was not an even flow of the product into the marketplace. Risk, risk, risk-the name of our game.

This is the key - risk is the name of the game. If you’re not comfortable with that (with being an edgewalker in the words of Paul Allen), then this is not the right game for you.

The following May the man who said, “Hypoallergenics is a drag.” launched Etherea, Revson’s answer to Clinique. It was never in the same league. Why? Many reasons. We all thought Etherea was an awful name, a combination of ethical and ethereal, which was quite bland. The package was too violet and flat. The “medical” aspect was quite overdone. Every Etherea product was grimly sealed. That’s not what women wanted. Revson made many mistakes, but his most basic was in attacking us. He should have said, “They can do it, but we can do it better!” Instead, he criticized us strongly-and the public knew better. On May 12, Revson advertised that “Etherea stands alone It just about did. All the customers were standing at the Clinique counters.

Revlon wasn’t alone in imitating our idea. Around the world, no fewer than 180 copies were counted in the space of just two years.

There was hardly a company that didn’t imitate-whether it was our bottles, our names, our paper-with just enough of a difference to avoid litigation. Whole new companies were founded on the principle of highfashion hypoallergenics. They all missed, because they failed to perceive the heart of Clinique. It was not a marketing device. It was an honest service.

Bezos says that in general, a two year lead is all you can expect in business. After that, competition will inevitably come. You should prepare for that.

In 1946 I knew everything there was to know about what I had to do. Times were simpler, television and million-dollar print advertising were not a way of life. One woman with definite ideas, pride in her product, and a hands-on approach could lay the foundation for a strong business. As the business grew, as the competition grew more sophisticated, as the possibilities for us became infinite, I knew I needed help.

Competition always arrives. You have to keep staying on top of it and keep excelling.

Even detractors could never accuse me of being stupid or of penny pinching. I pay the best salaries anywhere for the best staff, just as I pay top dollar for the purest, finest, most effective ingredients and research. But I expect the best in return from my staff.

This is absolutely the best way. Work with the best people, and then push them to do things even they did not know was possible.

The schools and the books make it all seem so cut and dried. If you do this, you get this. Well, that’s wrong. Just as a mother comes to know and work with her toddler, an executive comes to know the special vagaries and unique sensibilities of her business and of her own inner voice that tells the truth-if she listens hard enough. It’s a delicate business, business is, and I never yet met anyone who learned her business from a book or school, just as I never met a mother who raised a wonderful child from a book. Each business person must find a style, that voice that grows clearer and louder with each success and failure. Observing your own and your competitor’s successes and failures makes your inner business voice more sure and vivid.

This is why nearly every entrepreneur I’ve ever met hates MBA’s.

All around, during the acquisition binges of the 1970s, we saw business firms becoming conglomerates. There was pressure to do the same.

The Lauder inner voices said no, stick to what you know best and don’t change it lightly. Today, the same firms are spinning off the subsidiaries because they weakened instead of strengthened the original product.

The voice grows stronger with each success, each observed failure. All one has to do is listen—and watch.

Business is a magnificent obsession. I’ve never been bored a day in my life, partly because as a true business addict it’s never been enough to have steady work; I had to love what I was doing. Love your career or else find another. Measure your success in dollars not degrees. Respect your product.

Very, very smart decision to not combine the clinique line into the main product.

Secrecy

It became evident that secrecy in the development of our products was required because our competitors spent more time trying to “scoop” our new ideas than developing n ideas of their own. Sometimes they were less than inspired in their tactics. A young man applied to my husband for a factory position and was told that no jobs were available at the moment. “I’ll work for nothing,” he answered earnestly. “I’d just love to work for you so much, you don’t even have to pay me.”

Really, young man, we thought. How altruistic. Did he believe for one moment we didn’t realize he was here to watch and copy?

We began an elaborate coding system. Test fragrances would never have ingredients specified on vials, but would, instead, have numbers or letters that made sense to only me, Joe, or our sons. If an interested party happened to get his hands on a fragrance under consideration in our perfumery, he’d read that the vial he stole was none other that 007 or ZHR13 or BFXZ. That information couldn’t help him much.

We operate today in much the same fashion.

Secrecy is common in so many industries. I first saw this in Amazon, but now I’m seeing it everywhere.

The undercover operation began. If there were ever spies in the marketplace, they were everywhere now. Paranoid as that might sound, it was true. Our cover name was Miss Lauder.

Anytime anyone in the company wanted to discuss or write a memo on the gestating Clinique line, we were to call it Miss Lauder. We hoped that would imply to those who broke through our secret barriers that we were turning out a “junior” line of cosmetics. And it worked. Word drifted back that one known infiltrator was particularly puzzled at our choice of Carol, no teenager, to head the line. “What’s a nice, mature Vogue editor doing as the spokesperson of a junior line?” he mumbled to everyone who would listen.

They’re really constantly being spied on. Wild.

Conclusion

I’m interested in the word “tough.” I hear it said frequently that entrepreneurs and executives should be tough. ARE WOMEN TOUGH ENOUGH TO SUCCEED? blare headlines from a dozen magazines. Toughness, let me tell you, is not dependent on being crude or cruel. You can be feminine and tough. I love my femininity-as much as I rely on my toughness.

What others call tough, I call persistent. If you know you’re correct, you must be firm and not bow to pressure. Too often women are taught as little girls that sweetness is more valuable than persistence or stubbornness. Little boys, on the other hand, are taught to win. Persistence and being tough make for success. I can’t count the number of little plaques that Ronald has given out that read, IT CAN BE DONE. I agree. Anything can be done if you’re certain it’s right and you stay firm.

Agreed completely. These are the lessons I want to pass on to my own daughter.

We all make mistakes. What we don’t all do is acknowledge them. I’ve always found that it’s best to cut your losses rather than to stick to a sinking ship.

[sic]

You’re allowed to make a mistake. Once.

She does not play.

If we had to please investors, we’d have stringent financial controls, we’d have to explain and justify every decision. That would be bad business for people who rely on strong feelings about what’s right rather than on black and white “facts,” which often turn out to be false. If you’re your own boss, you can move fast. When ideas have to be implemented overnight, speed, flexibility, and authority to make decisions without consulting shareholders are of utmost importance. As a family business, we can also invest in research and development and go ahead with a product or call a halt to it. I can’t tell you how many batches of perfume or creams I’ve ordered discarded because they weren’t exactly right. Re-Nutriv, for example. The hand samples, the small test batches of just five pounds weight, seemed fine. When one hundred pounds of cream were produced and put into jars, something had gone wrong. The whole hundred pounds had to be discarded even though no one but I would have known the difference.

Unfortunately, that’s just what has happened. Estée Lauder is now a public company. Makes me kind of sad, given how strongly Estée herself felt about all of this. She really built a dynasty, and she was insistent on keeping it within the family. I wonder why Leonard, who knew his mother’s wishes rather well, changed his mind. There is a lot you can read about the recent upheaval.

Finally: the same principles that contribute to business success apply equally to women as they do to men. Business doesn’t have a sex. Demand the finest quality in product and performance. Tell your story with enthusiasm. Always look for things that should be changed. We learn too much, every day, to be satisfied with yesterday’s achievements.

This is absolutely true. If she can do it in the 1930s, there is no excuse for not being able to do it today when it is so normalized for women to work. It is absolutely possible. I still believe it is harder for a woman, but at the same time it is also easier than it has ever been for a woman to do this. Go out and be great. It is doable.

I know there are those who criticize luxury, implying that as long as hunger and war exist anywhere, behavior should be appropriately solemn. I must take exception to that kind of thinking. It’s life-destroying. Certainly, one has to pay dues, pay a great deal for the privilege of living in a sweet world and for the great, good fortune of being successful. I give as much as I can to alleviate sadness, hunger, and lack of hope. I make contributions to promote education-the greatest way out of despair-and I give time and effort, the kind of effort I put toward my business and life. Having done that, I can’t believe that rewarding one’s own hard work with glamour and excitement is profligate. I don’t want to miss any part of life, and living well is certainly one of the better parts.

Agreed. This is why it’s often such a bummer hanging out with ultra liberal people - they are just miserable. They just never let themselves be happy.

My life is comfortable, but I know that my joy in sunshine, friends, and color would bring me the same great happiness if I didn’t have much more than a penny. There is so much to do … and so much to enjoy. One must seize the moment, always.

I must admit one thing though. It is such satisfaction to know that my own great efforts, my intuition and risk taking, have brought me the means to enjoy the kind of good life I love.

Earning it is what makes it all worthwhile.

Living the American dream has been intense, difficult work, but I couldn’t have hoped for a more satisfying life. I believe that potential is unlimited-success depends on daring to act on dreams. How far do you want to go? Go the distance! Within each person is the potential to build the empire of her wishes, and don’t allow anyone to say you can’t have it all. You can you can have it all if you’re willing to work.

She really is a fantastic writer.

---

Estée Lauder is the greatest female entrepreneur ever.

She invented or popularized:

1. Women buying their own perfume
2. Men buying skincare
3. Hypoallergenic lines of makeup
4. Personalized skincare recommendations
5. Spraying perfume in front of you and walking through it
6. Open bottles of perfume so women could try them on in the store
7. Sending premium samples of skincare

And so much more. She operated in an era where it was frowned upon for women to be the main breadwinner, and even more daringly, she was the face of the brand while her husband was the homemaker. Most importantly, unlike other prominent female entrepreneurs (Mrs. B, Hetty Green), she did it all while being unabashedly feminine. She embraced her femininity and used it as an advantage.

She had no real mentorship, no advisors, and no lessons. She was a business and marketing genius from day one, and her once in a generation intuition led her to form a multi billion dollar empire and revolutionize the cosmetics industry forever.

You cannot read this book and not feel incredibly energized. This is one of my favorite biographies of all time.