The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide.
The company has significantly expanded its consumer reach to approximately 150 countries and territories. The company operates as a wholesaler, with its products sold in brick-and-mortar locations, and on various e-commerce platforms, including those operated by department stores, duty-free retailers, specialty-multi retailers, online pure players, upscale perfumeries...
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide.
The company has significantly expanded its consumer reach to approximately 150 countries and territories. The company operates as a wholesaler, with its products sold in brick-and-mortar locations, and on various e-commerce platforms, including those operated by department stores, duty-free retailers, specialty-multi retailers, online pure players, upscale perfumeries, pharmacies, and top-tier salons and spas. Additionally, the company operates a direct-to-consumer business across freestanding stores, its brands' websites, and third-party online platforms.
Products
Skin Care: The company's broad range of skin care products addresses various skin care needs. These products include moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, eye care, body care, exfoliators, acne and oil correctors, facial masks, and sun care products.
Makeup: The company offers an extensive array of makeup products across shades and colors. The full array of makeup products includes foundations, powders, concealers, and setting sprays, lipsticks, lip liners, and lip glosses, as well as mascaras, eyeshadows, and eyeliners. The company also sells related items, such as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools.
Fragrance: The company offers a variety of fragrance products. The fragrances are sold in various forms, including parfum, eau de parfum, eau de toilette, eau de cologne, and body spray, as well as lotions, creams, powders, candles, and soaps that are based on a particular fragrance.
Hair Care: The company's hair care products include shampoos, conditioners, styling products, treatments, finishing sprays, and hair color products.
Other: The other category includes royalty revenue from the company's licensing of the TOM FORD trademark to third parties since its fiscal 2023 acquisition of the TOM FORD brand, as well as sales from ancillary products and services that do not fit within the definitions of skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care.
Brands
Estee Lauder
Estee Lauder is one of the world's most renowned beauty brands, producing iconic skin care, makeup, and fragrances.
Aramis
The company pioneered the marketing of prestige men's fragrance, grooming, and skin care products with the introduction of Aramis products in 1964.
Clinique
Clinique skin care and makeup products are all allergy tested and 100% fragrance free and have been designed to address individual skin types and needs. Clinique also offers select fragrances. The skin care and makeup products are based on the research and related expertise of leading dermatologists.
Lab Series
Lab Series is a series of high performance, specialized skin care solutions uniquely created to improve the look and feel of men's skin.
Origins
Origins is known for high-performance natural skin care that is powered by nature and proven by science. The brand also sells makeup and fragrance products, and is distributed primarily through online platforms, specialty-multi retailers, and freestanding Origins stores. Additionally, Origins has a license agreement to develop and sell beauty products using the name of Dr. Andrew Weil.
M·A·C
M·A·C, the leading brand of professional cosmetics, was created in Toronto, Canada. The company completed its acquisition of M·A·C in 1998. The brand's popularity has grown through a tradition of word-of-mouth endorsement from professional makeup artists, models, photographers, and journalists around the world.
Bobbi Brown
Bobbi Brown Cosmetics is a global prestige beauty brand known for its high quality and undertone-correct makeup and skin care products that celebrate individual beauty and confidence. Reflecting its artistry roots, the brand is focused on creating a teaching and learning community of women around the world.
La Mer
La Mer is a leading global luxury skin care brand that is available in limited distribution worldwide. The brand is known for its iconic Crème de la Mer moisturizer, serums, and lotions, as well as other skin care and foundation products that are created around the original 'Miracle Broth.'
Aveda
Aveda sells high-performance, naturally-derived hair care products, as well as skin care, makeup, and fragrance. The brand is known for its innovative plant-based products and its commitment to environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility. It is distributed primarily through top-tier hair salons and direct-to-consumer, via online and Aveda stores.
Jo Malone London
Jo Malone London is a scented British lifestyle brand with understated elegance, offering enchanted story-telling and ‘High-Touch’ boutique services. The brand's famous colognes are perfect alone or artfully layered. Jo Malone London embodies the spirit of gifting generosity and inspires emotional elevation.
Bumble and bumble
Bumble and bumble is a New York-based hair care brand that creates high-quality hair care and styling products. The brand is distributed primarily through top-tier salons, including Bumble and bumble's own flagship salons, specialty-multi retailers, and online.
Darphin
Darphin is a Paris-based, prestige skin care brand known for its high-performance botanical skin care. The brand is distributed primarily through high-end independent pharmacies and online brand and retailer channels.
TOM FORD
On April 28, 2023, the company acquired the TOM FORD brand and related intellectual property. The TOM FORD brand is a luxury brand created in 2005, encompassing fashion, fragrance, eyewear and other accessories. From 2005 until the closing of the acquisition, the company developed, manufactured and distributed luxury fragrances and beauty products as a licensee. As the owner and steward of the brand, the company is continuing with the beauty products and have licensed the fashion brand and operations and eyewear to third parties. Consistent with the fashion brand, the company's products exude seductive modern-day glamour and include luxury fragrance, color cosmetics, men's grooming products, and skin care products for discerning consumers globally.
Smashbox
Smashbox Cosmetics is a Los Angeles-based, photo studio-inspired makeup brand with high performance products created for the company's consumers' everyday life in the spotlight.
AERIN
AERIN is a luxury lifestyle beauty and fragrance brand inspired by the signature style of its founder, Aerin Lauder.
Le Labo
Le Labo is a sensory and experiential lifestyle brand, deeply rooted in the craft of slow perfumery. Born in Grasse, France and raised in downtown NYC, it offers hand-crafted and personalized fragrances, as well as 'alternative' and genuine experiences celebrating craftsmanship.
Les Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle
Les Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle is a collection of exclusive, sophisticated, ultraluxury fragrances crafted by some of the world's most talented perfumers and published by the brand.
GLAMGLOW
GLAMGLOW started as a behind-the-scenes Hollywood secret to instant glow. The brand is known for bold, sensorial products that deliver instant results, and its unconventional philosophy that high performance skin care should also be fun and sexy.
Kilian Paris
Kilian Paris is a prestige fragrance brand that embodies timeless sophistication and modern luxury.
Too Faced
Too Faced is a serious makeup brand that knows how to have fun. The brand is unabashedly pink, pretty and feminine with a playful wink that is beloved for its high-quality formulas, cheeky product names, and distinctive packaging.
Dr.Jart+
Dr.Jart+ is a Seoul-based, global skin care brand known for its innovative formulations and unique combination of dermatological science and art.
The Abnormal Beauty Company
The company purchased the remaining interest in the Deciem Beauty Group Inc. (‘DECIEM’) in 2024. Known as ‘The Abnormal Beauty Company,’ DECIEM is a Toronto-based, vertically integrated multi-brand beauty company rooted in a consumer-focused and functional approach. Its portfolio includes The Ordinary, an ingredient-focused brand, and NIOD, a science-driven skin care brand.
BALMAIN Beauty
BALMAIN Beauty was established in 2022 through a license from the fashion house Balmain Paris ‘to celebrate all the beauties of the world, no exceptions.’ Building upon an exceptional fashion and fragrance legacy, BALMAIN Beauty launched its first fragrances in fiscal 2025(June 30, 2025).
From time to time, the company also makes minority investments in companies, mainly in the beauty industry, including through its New Incubation Ventures, the strategic early-stage investment and incubation arm of the company. In some cases, the company has acquired the remaining interests, such as Have & Be Co. Ltd. (i.e., Dr.Jart+) and DECIEM. The company has several minority investments, including a company based in India that manufactures, markets, and sells Ayurvedic skin care and other products under the Forest Essentials brand name, primarily in India.
The company's Luxury Brands are La Mer, Jo Malone London, TOM FORD, AERIN Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, KILIAN PARIS, and BALMAIN Beauty. The luxury portfolio also includes Estee Lauder's Re-Nutriv product franchise. The company's Large Brands are Estee Lauder, La Mer, Clinique, and M·A·C. The Scaling Brands include Jo Malone London, TOM FORD, The Ordinary, Aveda, and Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. The Developing Brands are Le Labo, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, Origins, KILIAN PARIS, Bumble and bumble, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, Smashbox, Darphin Paris, Lab Series, AERIN Beauty, NIOD, Aramis, BALMAIN Beauty, and GLAMGLOW.
Distribution
The company operates as a wholesaler, with its products sold in brick-and-mortar locations, and on various e-commerce platforms, including those operated by department stores, duty-free retailers, specialty-multi retailers, online pure players, upscale perfumeries, pharmacies, and top-tier salons and spas. Additionally, the company operates a direct-to-consumer business across freestanding stores, its brands' websites, and third-party online platforms. The company's general practice is to accept returns of its products from customers if properly requested and approved.
The company's online sites, including its brand.com sites, as well as those operated by authorized retailers and through third-party online platforms, are in approximately 50 countries, with a majority of these online sales generated in mainland China, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Most freestanding stores are operated by the company under a single brand name, such as M·A·C, Jo Malone London, and Le Labo. Over 300 of the freestanding stores are multi-branded company stores, primarily located in outlet malls.
The company maintains dedicated sales teams that manage its retail accounts. It has wholly-owned operations in over 50 countries through which it markets, sells, and distributes its products. In certain countries, the company sells its products through carefully selected distributors who it shares its commitment to protecting the image and position of its brands.
The company's Emerging Markets in The Americas include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, while in its reorganized region of EUKEM, the Emerging Markets are Central Europe, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Middle East, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam.
The company's Priority Emerging Markets in The Americas are Brazil and Mexico, and in EUKEM, they are India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Middle East, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam.
Customers
The company's strategy is to build strong relationships globally with select retailers, and its senior management works with executives of its major retail accounts on a regular basis in support of these relationships. The company is viewed as an important supplier to these customers. In addition, the company connects with its consumers directly through freestanding stores, e-commerce sites, and social media to build a robust omnichannel experience that allows consumers to shop in these and other channels.
Marketing
The company's strategy to market and promote its products begins with its well-diversified portfolio of distinctive brands across four major product categories. The portfolio can be deployed in multiple distribution channels, key travel corridors, and geographies, and the company continues to expand its consumer coverage by entering high-growth, consumer-preferred channels, markets, media, and price tiers where its global reputation and awareness of its brands benefit it.
Through its geographic and distribution channel diversity, the company offers strong consumer coverage, which allows it to reach and engage local consumers across an array of developed and emerging markets by emphasizing products and services with local relevance, inclusiveness, and appeal. This strategy is built around Bringing the Best to Everyone the company Touches.
The company's High-Touch approach is demonstrated through its integrated consumer engagement models that leverage its product specialists and technology to provide consumers with a distinct and truly personalized experience. As the business has grown and channel mix has evolved, the company has further expanded its marketing philosophy and High-Touch execution to build both online and offline personalized consumer experiences through digital and physical demonstrations, targeted digital media, and tailored trial-to-loyalty pathways. The company plans to continue to leverage its core strengths, including the quality of its products, its High-Touch consumer engagement, and a diversified portfolio of brands, channels, and geographies.
The company has a diverse portfolio of brands, and it employs different engagement models suited to each brand’s equity, distribution, product focus, understanding of the core consumer, and local relevance.
The company's marketing planning approach focuses on effective and impactful visible advertising spending, optimizing marketing programs, and eliminating low-return activities to accelerate new consumer acquisition. To that end, the company also leverages local insights to optimize the allocation of resources across different media outlets and retail touchpoints to resonate with its most discerning consumers most effectively. This includes strategically deploying its brands and tailoring product assortments and communications to fit local tastes and preferences in cities and neighborhoods, as well as using these insights to develop new ways to innovate, engage consumers, build brand equity, and sell products.
For a number of products, the company creates and deploys 360° integrated consumer engagement programs. It builds brand equity and drives traffic to retail locations and to its own and authorized retailers’ websites, including through digital and social media, broad reach advertising, such as billboards in cities and airports, television, and email.
The company continues to focus on increasing its brand awareness and sales through a strategic emphasis on technology, by expanding its digital and omnichannel presence, including social media and influencer marketing. Its ongoing investments in new analytical capabilities enable it to create more personalized experiences across its distribution channels. The company also anticipates and monitors emerging platforms, balancing speed to market with brand protection to ensure readiness while safeguarding brand equity.
The company continues to innovate to better meet consumer online shopping preferences, such as how-to videos, ratings and reviews, and mobile phone and tablet applications. It supports e-commerce businesses via digital and social marketing activities designed to build brand equity and High-Touch consumer engagement, in order to continue to offer better experiences and services and set the standard for prestige beauty shopping online. Additionally, the company supports its authorized retailers to strengthen their e-commerce businesses and drive sales of its brands on their websites.
The company is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) across the marketing value chain to enhance personalization at scale, increase speed to market, and reduce costs. Its marketing and sales executives spend considerable time in the field meeting with consumers, retailers, beauty advisors, and makeup artists at the points of sale to enable it to offer a seamless experience across channels of distribution.
The company has established a flexible global distribution network that is designed to meet the changing demands of its customers while maintaining service levels. It is continuously evaluating and adjusting this physical distribution network, particularly as it works to anticipate and respond to shifts in channel and consumer preferences, external challenges, as well as identifying opportunities to increase efficiencies and reduce costs. The company has established regional and local distribution centers, including those maintained by third parties, strategically positioned throughout the world in order to facilitate the efficient delivery of its products to its customers and consumers.
Research and Development
The company's research and development costs totaled $316 million in fiscal 2025(June 30, 2025).
Competition
The company’s competitors include L’Oreal S.A.; Unilever; Procter & Gamble; LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton; Chanel S.A.; Beiersdorf; Shiseido Company, Ltd.; Coty Inc.; and Puig.
Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights
The company owns the trademark rights used in connection with the manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sale of its products in the United States, China, and in other principal markets where such products are sold, including Estee Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, M·A·C, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin, TOM FORD, Smashbox, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, GLAMGLOW, KILIAN PARIS, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, The Ordinary, and NIOD. The company is the exclusive worldwide licensee for fragrances, cosmetics, skin care, and/or related products for AERIN, BALMAIN, and Dr. Andrew Weil.
Seasonality
The company's results of operations in total, by product category and geographic region, are subject to seasonal fluctuations, with net sales in the first half of the fiscal year (year ended June 2025) typically being slightly higher than in the second half of the fiscal year. The higher net sales that the company typically recognizes in the first half of the fiscal year are attributable to the increased levels of purchasing by consumers for special events and by retailers for holiday selling seasons.
History
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. was founded in 1946. The company was incorporated in 1976.
