Danielle Lauder‘s first collection with her great-grandmother’s brand, Estée Lauder, is meant to make women feel their best, while looking their best with the whimsical and light palettes. Inspired by her own need for a natural look while doing screen tests and auditions for her career as an actress, Danielle created the Act IV collection under Estée, which she called an “incredible and quite surreal experience,” in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife.com. “She passed away when I was younger. So the past few years being able to work in the offices and working with everyone and going to the archives, it’s been amazing learning about her and being able to really see the business empire that she’s built that permeates throughout everyone in the company at every level. It’s been really, really amazing to learn about her in that way,” the 26-year-old explained.
The limited-edition Act IV collection includes a Spotlight Highlighter that offers the perfect glow for any skintone, a Cinemattic Complexion Liquid, a primer that blurs pores and fills lines, and a Lip Duet Tint + Balm, that is both moisturizing and a pigmented. “The products were meant to enhance and embellish your already amazing features, versus a lot of coverage or a 50 step contour situation,” Danielle revealed. “I was involved every single step of the way. When I was working out of product development at the HQ in New York, they gave me just a giant stack of these trend books and I went through them for days and picked different buttons and fixtures and textures and quotes to create this live mood board that I took to the labs in New York, and LA and Milan to shade match and that’s where all the inspiration started.”
Of course, Danielle was inspired by her great-grandmother’s legacy, which continues to be at the forefront of the beauty industry today. “She was someone that said beauty belongs to everyone and that every woman is beautiful, it just takes a little bit of effort. So I was really thinking about that with these products,” Danielle said. “It’s for every woman to give themselves that extra touch of glamour to feel beautiful and Estée was someone that was very dedicated to every single detail level of the product. From the concept to the counter and the packaging it’s just as important as was how you would sell it. The storytelling is something that she really embedded within the company and I tried to take on the beauty that makes you a star.”