Origins is marketed as a natural skincare brand, emphasizing plant-based formulations, eco-conscious packaging, and sustainability commitments. Its branding positions it as a green alternative in mainstream beauty.
Since being acquired by Estée Lauder, however, Origins’ ethics are defined by its parent company. Products are distributed in mainland China, where animal testing is legally mandated, which contradicts its cruelty-free image.
More significantly, Estée Lauder’s chairman, Ronald Lauder, is president of the Jewish National Fund, a quasi-governmental body that controls 13% of Israeli land and excludes Palestinians from leasing or purchasing it. The JNF has long supported settlement expansion and military-linked charities. Through this leadership, Estée Lauder, and all of its brands, including Origins, are directly tied to the political and economic 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.
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