Estee Lauder was born and raised in Queens, New York by Eastern European immigrant parents. She was always interested in beauty, and was mentored by her uncle, a chemist, who helped her to begin a career selling a small range of beauty products to hotels and boutiques. From these humble beginnings in 1946 lauder created an empire based on her notion that every woman deserves to be beautiful. One of Estee Lauder's favourite quotes was "Telephone, Telegraph, Tell-A-Woman," because she knew that once a woman tried an Estee Lauder product, she would love it and share it with her friends. lauder was such a success that TIME named her as one of the top twenty most influential business people of the twentieth century.