Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder Companies is one of the world’s largest beauty conglomerates, owning more than 20 brands across skincare, fragrance, and cosmetics. The group commands a dominant share of the global prestige beauty market, shaping consumer culture through luxury and mass-market reach.

This corporate power is inseparable from political influence. Estée Lauder’s chairman, Ronald Lauder, is president of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an organisation that controls roughly 13% of land in Israel, bars Palestinians from access, and funds illegal settlement expansion and military-linked projects. Through his leadership and wealth, the company is financially and politically tied to the structures of Israeli apartheid and displacement.

While the conglomerate promotes sustainability and cruelty-free initiatives across individual brands, these claims are undermined by its sales in markets that mandate animal testing, opaque supply chains, and selective ethics shaped by profit. Estée Lauder’s global reach ensures that consumer spending on any of its brands contributes to systems of exploitation and political complicity.