About a week ago, I published my first blog post on The Ordinary products (read here). Quite a few of the commenters told me they had either loved the product, but wouldn´t repurchase or that they had sent back all The Ordinary products they owned because they didn´t want to support the brand, or, more precisely the CEO Brandon Truaxe.

Now for full disclosure, I made my order at the end of January, so before the “drama” started, but only get around to publishing the reviews now. Testing skincare takes time. But even if I hadn´t, would I have refrained from ordering The Ordinary if I had known?

I am not sure. Let me explain why:

I might be missing some maior things here, I am usually not up to date with drama, not in my personal life and even less online, and if I do, please enlighten me in the comments. But, opposed to other brands acting exclusive towards to POC (see Tarte), the things I have seen him post (“do”?) are neither racist nor sexist.

They are disturbing, I feel like he is oversharing and I don´t agree with publicly firing or even fighting with coworkers. It is not what I think benefits a brands reputation.

But that is how I feel, and everyone is fit to run his business and his social media the way he or she deem appropriate. Do I need to follow and read these things, thereby supporting them? No, and I don´t.

But do I want to boycott the brand for that reason? Not really.

“What a hyppocrite!” you might say now. “You just don´t want to replace the products you love!” Valid point, but I assure you: As a blogger, a product being actually repurchased is a rare thing.

Out of the five The Ordinary products I have tried so far, only three fall in the “would repurchase” category, and only one of them is a product I would have a hard time finding a (probably more expensive) substitute for.

But behind a brand are more people than the CEO. In fact, many more.

People that work in production, development, in packing and distribution. People that earn their living that way. If I boycott the brand now, I will affect them as much, maybe even more in the long run. Some of them might face unemployment when sales go down, way before the founder of a company will be asked to step down.

In fact, Nicoles Kilners mother still works for Deciem in Distribution, and her (publicly fired) daughter supports that (according to this Racket article here).

And how about employees complaining about the work situation in stores, about being understaffed and underequipped? As many have stepped up and told us how much they love it there. And if you have ever watched a “The honest truth why I quit working at Sephora” video (come on, admit it), you´ll know that such things need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Bottom line: I don´t see a reason to boycott Deciem (and thus The Ordinary, Niod, Hylamide, Stemm, Fountain, Avestan…) At least not now. But I do of course respect everyones decision to do so.

What are your thoughts on the topic? And yes, it is completely unrelated to this weeks vlog, where I talk about how I do my hair. Sorry.

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