Estee Lauder

A Hungarian-Jewish immigrant's daughter from Corona, Queen started selling face creams from her uncle's chemistry lab inside Manhattan Beauty parlors in the late 1930s. By the time she died in 2004, the company carrying her name had a market capitalisation above $25 billion. Josephine Esther Menser founded Estee Lauder Cosmetics in New York in 1946. The first four products sold through Florence Morris' Salon on Madison Avenue. Saxe V Avenue opened her first counter in 1948. Harrods London followed in 1960. Youth due launched in 1953, priced as a bath oil so women would buy it for themselves. The marketing invention was the gift with purchase. Lauder gave a small free sample to anyone who came near her counter.