The first was Estée in 1968. It was Mrs. Lauder's first foray into perfume. Not Youth Dew. When Youth Dew came out in ’53, she was into skincare. That was her love, and she wanted a bath oil. That was a skin perfume. But her first real perfume that she was part of was Estée of ’68. It was also the first American perfume that made the French perfumers sit up and take notice. When you look at some of the interpretations of Estée, think of First by Van Cleef & Arpels, that kind of went there. And Roure Bertrand Dupont’s Geoffrey Webster, told me, for example, that he regarded Estée as the first American masterpiece.

— Michael Edwards, quoted in Liquid Emotion, Cultural Artifact: A Conversation with Fragrance Taxonomist Michael Edwards at BeautyMatter.