In the autumn of 1992, women stopping at cosmetics counters across America were handed a tiny pink ribbon and a card showing how to check their own breasts. At a time when breast cancer was rarely discussed in public, that small loop of ribbon started a conversation that has never stopped.
A refugee from Vienna
Evelyn Lauder was born Evelyn Hausner in Vienna in 1936, into a Jewish family. In 1938, after Hitler annexed Austria, her parents fled with her. The family went first to England, where for a time they were separated, and in 1940 they sailed to New York. She later said that her childhood as a refugee from the Nazis gave her strength of mind.
She grew up in New York, went to the city's public schools and graduated from Hunter College in 1958. She worked for several years as a public school teacher. In 1959 she married Leonard Lauder, the son of Estée and Joseph Lauder, and joined what was then a small family cosmetics business. As it grew into a global company, she helped develop its skin care, make-up and fragrance lines, came up with the name for the Clinique brand, and rose to senior corporate vice president.
A personal fight
In 1989 Evelyn Lauder was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. She went on to spend more than twenty years raising awareness of the disease and money to defeat it. She was a board member at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and led the fundraising effort that created a breast centre there, now called the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center, which focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. She helped raise a further $5 million for an endowment to fund clinical research at the centre.
In April 1991, over lunch, she discussed ideas for articles about breast cancer with her friend Alexandra Penney, then editor of Self magazine. Self went on to publish its first annual issue for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the following year the two women set out to build on its success.
A ribbon on every counter
In 1992, as part of Self's second annual Breast Cancer Awareness Month issue, Lauder and Penney launched the pink ribbon as a symbol of breast cancer awareness. The ribbons were handed to women to remind them about breast exams. Penney's idea was to place ribbons in Estée Lauder's New York stores. Lauder went further and committed to putting them on the company's cosmetics counters across the United States. She and her husband Leonard paid for much of the first effort themselves.
At first the ribbon was so new that some people thought it was part of an AIDS awareness campaign. Soon that changed. Lauder later recalled that from there, the ribbon "became ubiquitous." By October 2008, The Estée Lauder Companies estimated, its campaign had distributed 80 million ribbons. Today the pink ribbon is recognised around the world.
Lauder also used her company's own products to spread the message. By 1993 she had overseen the creation of a new shade called Pink Ribbon, and her husband paid the cost of registering the new research foundation in all 50 states. By the start of 1995 some $900,000 had been raised for the foundation, including $120,000 from sales of Pink Ribbon lipstick and blusher and $190,000 from a pink Clinique lipstick called Berry Kiss. By October 2008, the company estimated, its campaign had raised $335 million towards research. Even an airline joined in: Delta Air Lines painted one of its long-haul planes pink in honour of the foundation, and after Lauder's death it renamed the plane in her memory.
A foundation born at a kitchen table
Awareness was only half of her goal. In 1993 Evelyn Lauder, her friend the oncologist Dr Larry Norton and Leonard Lauder founded the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, after a conversation at her kitchen table. According to the foundation, they shared a belief that "funding was the only obstacle standing between breast cancer and a cure." BCRF set out to back the best scientists and give them steady support to pursue bold ideas.
Evelyn Lauder died in Manhattan on 12 November 2011, aged 75, from complications of ovarian cancer. Her work did not stop with her. BCRF's Evelyn H. Lauder Founder's Fund now supports large collaborative studies of how breast cancer spreads, and The Estée Lauder Companies has continued the Breast Cancer Campaign she started in 1992.
Who it helps today
BCRF says it has funded more than $1 billion in breast cancer research since 1993. In September 2026 it announced a record of more than $75 million in grants for 2026–2027, supporting over 280 researchers in 18 countries. That includes $23.8 million for research into metastatic breast cancer, the advanced form of the disease, across 102 projects, which BCRF says makes it the largest private funder of stage 4 breast cancer research in the world.
The company campaign has grown too. By its 30th anniversary in 2023, the Breast Cancer Campaign and The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation had funded more than $131 million for research, education and medical services, including more than $103 million for research through BCRF, and supported more than 60 organisations around the world. To mark that anniversary, the charitable foundation committed $15 million over five years to BCRF for a study of breast cancer disparities affecting Black women.
Why it matters
Every pink ribbon carries a simple message: you are not alone, and this disease can be talked about, studied and beaten. The research Lauder championed helps patients of every background, in every country where doctors use what scientists learn.
A little girl who once had to flee her home grew up to give millions of women around the world something precious: knowledge, hope and a community that refuses to stay silent. Every time a pink ribbon is pinned on, her idea keeps working, and the scientists she believed in keep moving closer to a cure.
People in this story
Sources & further reading
- Evelyn Lauder, Wikipedia
- Evelyn Lauder dies; co-founder of pink ribbon breast health awareness, NPR / Associated Press (via WNIJ and WNIU)
- Evelyn Lauder, creator of cancer's pink ribbon, dies at 75, Fox News / Associated Press
- Evelyn Lauder, 75, original pink-ribbon cancer campaigner, The Chronicle of Philanthropy
- Our history, Breast Cancer Research Foundation
- BCRF awards over $75 million in scientific grants, Breast Cancer Research Foundation
- 30 years of the Breast Cancer Campaign, The Estée Lauder Companies
Researched from the sources above and checked against them. Spotted an error? Tell us.
Tikkun olam in action. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.
