Estée Lauder Price Tracker

Estée Lauder is where The Estée Lauder Companies began: Estée Lauder and her husband Joseph started selling cosmetics in New York in 1946 with just four products, won Saks Fifth Avenue as their first department-store account in 1948 and opened their first account abroad at Harrods in London in 1960. Today it is the group's flagship brand, alongside sister brands such as Clinique, La Mer and MAC. In the US it sells through esteelauder.com and department stores; UK shoppers have their own site, esteelauder.co.uk.

Estée Lauder herself is credited with popularising the free gift with purchase, and the brand still tends to favour extras over straight discounts: gift sets, complimentary items with qualifying orders and seasonal value sets, especially before the holidays and around Black Friday. In the UK, the free Estée E-List loyalty programme adds points and three tiers based on what you earn in a year. Department stores and beauty retailers set their own prices for the same products, so the brand site isn't automatically the cheapest place to buy.

That habit of adding gifts rather than cutting prices is exactly why a price alert helps here: it tells you when the price itself falls. Set it on the product you actually repurchase – Advanced Night Repair, your Double Wear foundation, a fragrance such as Beautiful or Pleasures – and SaleAlarm emails you when it drops. Then compare calmly: a genuine reduction at one retailer can be worth more than a free gift you'd never use at another.