Dr. Jart+ is a South Korean skincare brand known for its innovative formulations and bold design. In 2019, Estée Lauder acquired full ownership, integrating the company into its global portfolio.
Despite its modern and ethical image, Dr. Jart+ is tied to Estée Lauder’s broader practices. The parent company sells in mainland China, where animal testing is legally required, which undermines cruelty-free claims across its portfolio.
Estée Lauder’s chairman, Ronald Lauder, also serves as president of the Jewish National Fund, a quasi-governmental body that controls 13 percent of Israeli land and excludes Palestinians from access. The JNF supports illegal settlement expansion and military-linked programs. Through this leadership, Estée Lauder and Dr. Jart+ are directly connected to the structures of Israeli apartheid.
Estée Lauder is rated High Impact because it concentrates cultural and financial power at a global scale while channelling wealth into one of the most entrenched institutions of Israeli apartheid. With Ronald Lauder at the helm of the Jewish National Fund, the company is directly bound to the mechanisms of land confiscation, settlement growth, and military-aligned infrastructure in Palestine.
The impact is structural: dozens of distinct brands—from mass-market staples like Clinique and Rimmel to luxury houses like La Mer and Tom Ford Beauty—all funnel revenue into the same corporate centre. Every purchase strengthens a conglomerate that not only profits from extractive and exploitative supply chains but also invests in political projects sustaining dispossession.
Where other beauty firms may be complicit through regulatory concessions such as animal testing in China, Estée Lauder stands out because its leadership transforms consumer spending into political capital for an apartheid regime. That combination of market dominance and direct political entanglement makes it one of the most urgent boycott targets in the sector.
Skin1004