Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Evelyn Lauder has died...

Estée Lauder's ingenious executive and the philanthropist forever associated with breast cancer awareness passed away

Evelyn Lauder the co-creator and mastermind behind the symbol recognized worldwide for breast cancer awareness died on November 12, 2011...Ms. Lauder was a savvy well-organized businesswoman who served in various roles at Estée Lauder...She was born Evelyn Hausner, met her husband Leonard on a blind date in 1958 and they were married in 1959...After marrying Leonard
, she quit her job as a teacher and
went to work for her mother-in-law Estée Lauder, whose company of the same name was founded in 1946...

When Evelyn Lauder joined Estée Lauder, they were only marketing six products... Ms. Lauder was the creator of the Clinique brand at Estée Lauderand she developed its product line and training system...She was the first person ever to wear the white lab coat that is still worn by Clinique salespeople at cosmetic counters in department stores worldwide...

The Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center opened in 1992 after Ms. Lauder raised most of the $13.6 million dollars that was used to fund it...An additional $5 million was raised to fund clinical research there...At lunch with her friend Alexandra Penney, the editor of Self magazine, they brainstormed ideas about how to increase breast cancer awareness and hence the first annual issue of Self magazine for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month was born...With breast cancer awareness as their cause, together Ms. Lauder and Ms. Penney established The Breast Cancer Research Foundation and chose the pink ribbon as its official symbol...Although Ms. Penney wanted the pink ribbons in all of Estee Lauder's New York City stores, Ms. Lauder went one step further and committed to have the pink symbol on all Estée Lauder counters countrywide...Ms. Lauder's committment to supporting breast cancer awareness and research was also evident in her creation of lipstick and blush in the shade of "Pink Ribbon" whose proceeds, $190,000, from sales went to the foundation adding up to $900,000 by the beginning of 1995...All in all in 2008, Estée Lauder Companies estimates that over $335 million was raised for breast cancer research and 80 million pink ribbons were given out...

It's just crazy how one truly committed person could touch the lives of so many women worldwide...Watch the video below to see for yourself the incredible amount of care and concern that Ms. Lauder exudes from her very essence...





In 2010, Moira Forbes interviewed Ms. Lauder and quotes her as having said,

"The most helpful piece of advice that I could give to anybody is to select a charity, or create a charity, that you really feel passionate about and if you do, don’t give up.

It’s the same as a career. Just stay with it and don’t let anything discourage you; just keep going and working for it. Before you know it’ll be a success.

I started the pink ribbon with Alexandra Penney…and for the first three of four years no one understood entirely what this was.

But I said…’If we just keep giving those ribbons away, it’s going to take off. It’s going to pick up.’ And one day I wore my pink ribbon and I got aboard a plane and the stewardess said “Oh, I know what that is! That’s…pink ribbon is the alert for doing your breast examination and having a mammography.”


The lovely Evelyn H. Lauder died in her home in New York City from complications associated with ovarian cancer...


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