Estee Lauder dies, aged 97

US: Estee Lauder who died on Saturday at her home in New York aged 97 was the last of a trinity of 20th century independent female tycoons who transformed the cosmetics industry into international empires.

Her humble home-made "jars of hope" were the foundations of a company estimated last year to be one of the largest in the US, worth $10 billion with 21,500 employees and some 2,000 products sold in more than 130 countries across five continents.

Like Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden before her, she rose from poverty to power fuelled by a fierce and formidable ambition and a hands-on approach to selling. "I never dreamed about success," she once said. "I worked for it." Selling was her life.

Born in the working-class Corona area of Queens in New York, Josephine Esther-Mentzer was the youngest child of Jewish immigrants from Hungary. She started selling facial creams in the l930s concocted on her kitchen cooker by her uncle John Schotz, a chemist and sold them locally with increasing success. In 1946 she set up Estee Lauder Companies with her husband Joseph Lauter, (who later changed his name to Lauder). He looked after the finances, while she controlled the marketing. Their first big break came in l948 when she persuaded a buyer from Saks to place a sizeable order.

Her first success was a potent perfume called Youth Dew, originally sold as a bath oil, launched in l953, the result of a friendship with Lewis van Ameringen, a Dutch-born industrialist whose company would go on to become the International Flavours and Fragrances. Youth Dew brought the Lauder turnover at Neiman Marcus from a few hundred dollars to $5,000 a week and made Estee Lauder a household name.

Other weapons in the interminable fight against wrinkles, blemishes and saggy skin were her super rich all purpose cream, Re Nutriv, and her own non-stop sales talk. Her insistence on selling through department stores and offering a gift with a purchase was a profitable marketing idea that others ridiculed at first, but were then quick to copy. At a time when her arch rival Elizabeth Arden rarely saw buyers, Estee Lauder established close rapport with hers, taking them out to dinner and making a fuss of them. Socially very aggressive, she also cultivated rich society women such as the Duchess of Windsor and Princess Grace of Monaco, attended charity events and hosted elaborate lunches in her opulent houses in New York, Palm Beach or in the south of France.

Her products were innovative; she introduced the Aramis line of men's toiletries and the Clinque range of allergy tested cosmetics.

Her son, Leonard Lauder, took over the family business in l982 and remains chief executive while her other son, Ronald, served briefly in the Reagan administration before rejoining the company.

She is survived by them, by four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.