Cosmetics pioneer Estée Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Queens, New York. Her birth date usually given as July 1, 1908, but there has been some speculation that she was actually born two years earlier in 1906. She came from a family of Jewish immigrants—her mother was Hungarian and her father was Czech.
Lauder showed her interest in beauty at an early age. She loved to brush her mother's long hair and apply creams to her face. Through her uncle, a chemist, Lauder later learned how to make her own beauty creams. She was only a teenager when she started selling her products at local hair salons. Lauder marketed her wares as "jars of hope" and even gave out free samples.