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Deciem, the beauty company best known for its super-inexpensive skincare line The Ordinary, has become the beauty world’s version of reality TV. Its founder, Brandon Truaxe, interacts with customers in a way that is completely unprecedented; in an industry that historically doesn’t publish any sort of messaging without getting approval from three layers of executives and months of market research, Truaxe handles the brand’s social accounts largely by himself, using language that would get any other social media manager fired. He does, after all, call Deciem “the abnormal beauty company.”

While this has produced a truly unique business model (effective skincare for under $10), Truaxe has also put himself under a microscope because of his candor, often creating backlash from his followers and customers. From picking fights with people to firing key members of staff, it’s all played out publicly.

Starting on Tuesday, Truaxe started a streak of prolific posting on Instagram, which included publicly posting a dissenting commenter’s social media information and later removing it and apologizing. On Thursday, Truaxe got on a call with Racked for a wide-ranging conversation. Topics included recent firings, his relationship with Estée Lauder, a mysterious announcement he’s going to make over the weekend, and his feelings about Donald Trump. That last one was prompted by a headline in the B2B publication Cosmetics Business that reads, “Deciem founder Brandon Truaxe accused of ‘Trump-style social’ and ‘bullying consumers.’”

After this conversation, he posted a shot of the story on Deciem’s Instagram account asking in the caption not to be compared to the president of the United States and ending with, “Whether you agree or disagree with some or all thoughts of @realdonaldtrump, please respect him as the President of a powerful nation and don’t compare me with him. Your comparison would make both of us, and anybody intelligent, angry. Please respect Presidents of countries and founders of businesses in the same way that you would respect your family, your friends, your colleagues and our collective world at large.”

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

On getting in trouble on social media and the backlash he received by posting a picture of a homeless person on Deciem’s Instagram:

Look, I just don’t understand. This homeless person was sitting, smoking quote-unquote a cigarette, reading a book happily at night in front of a million-dollar-a-year — that I can’t afford! — property on Fifth Ave across from the library. Actually, this person is disrespectful to the beauty of the library; he is disrespectful to the beauty of Fifth Avenue. But this person was so peaceful. He was just reading his book, which homeless people should do more of. He wasn’t bothering us, so when construction people told me, “We can’t get in, kick him out,” I said, “You can get in. Just ask him, can we please get through the door.”

But when I posted that, I genuinely was expecting an enormous amount of love for that person. [Some commenters questioned posting the picture without the subject’s consent.] If the person in the photograph has an objection, they can sue [the photographer] and they can make a claim. This is why people ask for a release. Otherwise, the rights belong to a photographer. We took the risk. But if he has an objection, he would reach out to us and we would either pay him damages if he claims or we’ll just take it down.

The truth actually is this: If I [would] say to all of our audience, “I listen to you. You’re right. Please find this man, because he has left us now” — he was a homeless person, he’d gone somewhere else to sit and loiter — “if you find him, I will personally give him $20,000 to make his life better,” I promise you I will get more backlash.

On posting angrily about a two-year-old article from the Sunday Times:

As I was browsing through Instagram, all of a sudden this sponsored ad came up from Sunday Times Style, and I clicked on it and I saw they had posted this goddamned link to the article. So all of a sudden, I got frustrated. If you meet someone five years ago, can you not talk about it today? Why are people criticizing me?

The Sunday Times article says I’m a hideous Botox man who believes that you shouldn’t smile. I was joking that if you’re going to get so much Botox, then the better solution is just not to smile. And then the editor wrote that as, “Brandon suggests you don’t smile.” Every single email from me ends with “smiles.” All my life, since I was 15. She never smiled, despite her wrinkles, in the whole two-day course of the interview which [Deciem’s London-based publicist] had arranged. I was so upset that she thought she was doing me a favor to arrange this. She’s a loving person.

On posting the account of a commenter who criticized him on Instagram and why he apologized:

First of all, I was very polite to her. That account was created about two or three months ago, at a time [when] we had a big mess. That account has only about 130 followers. It’s private. It has never commented on anything anywhere else. And then when I apologized and publicly posted both the post and the apology, why did she cause no more upheaval? Why did she not talk about it more? And then why did she not accept my $20,000 gift, and why has she now disappeared? Because there is no person behind it. The person behind it would have to come out and say who they are. I have a computer science degree from the University of Waterloo. Do you think it’s possible that I know who that account belonged to?

I didn’t apologize. I said thank you for guiding me. I didn’t say I apologize. I said, look, I’m listening to you. I may or may not agree with what you’re saying, but your reaction is causing enormous pain for our social team, who is peacefully trying to respect you. It’s causing enormous pain for my team everywhere. It’s causing enormous pain for people around me and for our customers and followers who love me, but it’s also causing some pain for me.

On being compared to Trump:

Cosmetics Business published a headline comparing me to Trump because one of the followers said that. That customer is disrespecting not me but is disrespecting all of America. Let’s for a moment forget whether or not we believe Trump in peace or love or anger. He is the president of your country. So when someone takes a cosmetics guy, a computer science programmer, and says he’s like Trump, they don’t realize that the people in Morocco or Oman would never go and compare some beauty guy to their president. They don’t realize that if Trump was Obama, they wouldn’t say this.

Not being American allows me to observe. If I was American, I would just be thinking, as opposed to observing. But being an outsider allows me to observe. What the problem really was is that America had very limited choices for a president. Every single option available had either baggage or problems. We may not believe in [Trump’s] values or [think] some of the things he is doing are overreactions. Immigration built that country and immigrants don’t want war. They leave their families to come and help because they want an opportunity; that’s why many disagree.

Trump is someone who’s thinking, and some of his thoughts as a businessman may be good, some may not be good. Look at the trade wars, for example: He’s thinking as a businessman. That may be good temporarily for business, but it wouldn’t be good permanently for America. It would create enemies.

On firing Deciem’s US-based PR manager and a partnership manager in New York City:

They’re both amazing people. Nothing happened. [Former co-CEO] Nicola [Kilner] hired them in a rush. I don’t know what to do. I gave them a huge severance. I didn’t do it personally because I was too embarrassed to tell them. I don’t have anything for them to do full time yet. They would be sitting in an empty office. We only have stores and the employees. If they choose not to understand this, that’s okay. I will hire both of them in a heartbeat when there is a job. Nicola got this $30,000-a-month office that’s empty because I don’t know what to do with it. We only need to open stores. [Two NYC stores are open, and eight more are under construction.]

On comments made by several former NYC store employees who reached out to Racked and characterized the stores as understaffed and chaotic, and said the Nolita location was without a sink or toilet for a few weeks:

Those people are going to leave on their own. We have another store next door that’s empty with a sink. Why do they need the goddamned sink in this store? What I’m trying to say is they’re all complaining; they’re not observing. I need to staff. I let my HR team hire who they think is right, and then I observe. That’s why we randomly walk into stores and meet customers and hug employees because the reaction of what people are doing tells you everything.

So if somebody thinks the New York store is understaffed, they should leave. Because understaffed simply means the customer needs to wait for a bit. That’s okay. People who don’t choose to see the beauty of Deciem and are complaining should kindly leave. And if one day they see the reality and forgive me and forgive us so we can forgive them, they can come back. [There was a bathroom in the under-construction storefront next door that employees used while theirs was not operational.]

On how he hires:

Our HR is looking; they go to job fairs, they hire from other brands. And then when they hire them, by observing and visiting stores, I may hire and fire. Because that’s when I do my interview. I trust my HR team, but I trust myself more. And that’s how it basically happens. We’ve got 700 to 800 employees. It’s a company. We didn’t just get lucky; we’re running the business methodically.

I’m a computer science guy. In computer science, the way you design object-oriented programming is by developing small pieces of software that solve a problem. Then you build upon that. If the piece of code that’s written is not that great, but the problem it’s solving is just a mundane thing, you keep it. If a big piece of software is a big problem, you need to change it.

I’m not comparing employees’ emotions to software, but the analogy’s important because if someone is doing their job and they’re not the best employee but the job just is being done anyway, you leave them alone. If someone is given a very big task and all they’re talking about is how everything is a problem, you need to write a new piece of code.

On whether he has any regrets about firing co-CEO Nicola Kilner, whose mother is still employed by Deciem in the UK (Elle just published a profile on Kilner in its May issue):

Absolutely not, because I didn’t fire Nicola. She basically left on her own. When she came back, I gave her a choice. I said look, let’s forgive each other. And then she said, “Okay, I’m happy now, but you need to fire Shamin [Mohamed, the director of operations, with whom Kilner had a disagreement]. Look at the immensity! I don’t have a word for it. So no. She led herself to that pathway. I gave her two years of severance. She is being paid for two years to go relax. It wasn’t anger; it was peace.

[Kilner confirmed the severance, telling Racked in a text message: “He was very fair and respectful in my package and I am very thankful. Mum works packing customer orders and I fully support her staying. We built an amazing team in the Nottingham location where she is based and they are like family to her.”]

On the state of ESHO, the lip care line he discontinued via a now-deleted Instagram post and offered to return to its co-founder Dr. Tijion Esho:

The reason I posted that is to save [Esho] from my partners and Estée Lauder saying, “Why the heck did you give the brand away?” By making it public, it would never hurt him. So we prepared all the agreements, we sent it to him, it was ready to sign, and then he sends it to us saying, “No, no, no, my formula needs to be fixed.” I’m sorry, what the fuck are you talking about? I don’t have time for this.

At the moment, I had to leave it in the hands of the lawyers because we’re not fixing anything; we already fixed them. I’m not going to fix his formulas again, for free. Do you realize that we spent $1 million on his trademark, his product development information? I gave all of that to him for free. Instead of saying, “Thank you, you gave me a million dollars,” this is the reaction.

[According to legal documents Esho provided to Racked, he claims to have received no payment from any sales of ESHO products, and no reports of those sales. (Contractually, he was supposed to receive 5 percent of monthly gross revenues.) He also notes that he had requested, via his legal team and not personally, from Deciem “details of the improvements made” on ESHO product formulations. This was in response to Truaxe’s deleted Instagram post noting that his staff had “fixed” the formulas. Esho says he wants to ensure the products are “safe and effective to use after [Truaxe] stated he had rushed them.” Esho adds, “This was never about money. This was about creating something bigger than the both of us and deliver to all the clients who bought ESHO what Brandon had promised. To do this all we need is the fixed formulas as he promised in his post to myself and the customers.”]

On his relationship with Estée Lauder, which has a minority stake in Deciem:

They own 28 percent. If you’re married, you have 50 percent of your wealth. They own 28 percent. They don’t control anything. We don’t need any more money. I never have to sell Deciem.

People need to wake up. I love my life. I don’t need to sell anything. Leonard [Lauder] loves me. We talk all the time. Leonard calls me his shorter brother, even though I’m taller. We love each other. My [business] partner from a long time ago who lives in Vancouver, Pasquale [Cusano], owns the other 28 percent. He invested $1.8 million when we started, and he has become a billionaire from it now.

I control the company; I’m running the company. Forget the shares. Yes, I may be the biggest shareholder, but that doesn’t mean anything. There are agreements in place that no shareholder, even if they end up owning 99.9 percent, [can fire me.] I choose to leave when I choose to leave.

On a mysterious announcement he will be making this weekend:

I’m about to do something that’s going to communicate more love, much more love, this weekend. It’s going to cause a lot more stir. This weekend is going to be hard on our social media team, who don’t even know that it’s coming. Which is why I’ve invited the two managers that are running social media [who respond to comments and questions on posts] to Morocco. They don’t know why they’re invited to come. They’re coming for one reason, because they don’t know how much pain they’re going to go through for no reason this weekend. Because all I’m going to do is communicate a lot more love, and unloving people are going to hate it.

On why he still wants to keep all the Deciem brands alive, instead of just focusing on The Ordinary:

The star brand of Deciem is Niod. Niod is what I love, and Niod is what’s growing steadily and peacefully, and it’s actually just as well-priced as The Ordinary when people think about it. We just haven’t given [the other brands] time because The Ordinary is exploding. Imagine if you had five children and one of them fell and broke his knee. The one you need to focus on is the one who broke his knee. I don’t need to focus on The Ordinary. I can die and The Ordinary can become a billion-dollar business. Why would I not focus on the kids that need help?

On the new fragrance brand Avestan:

I don’t know if you’ve seen my interaction with Jesse Cook online, who is a musician I fell in love with. The most beautiful thing that could occur has occurred yesterday, and I am so peaceful. [Truaxe wrote on Instagram that Cook inspired him to start Deciem and that Cook is named in his will.] Jesse Cook then reached out to me publicly. To the people who love Madonna, which I don’t, it’s like Madonna commenting saying, “I love you,” out of nowhere. Jesse Cook is the reason Deciem exists. But he didn’t know it.

So I want to work with him and Jon Kortajarena, to join us to document the story of Avestan. [He] is a beautiful male model that fragrances are exploiting as shit, like [Madonna’s skincare line] MDNA. But he’s a good soul. I’m not hiring a model for Avestan; I’m hiring someone to document the journey through his eyes on how Avestan was developed. I’m working with his agent now. The agent just needs to realize that Avestan is not a multibillion-dollar glossy ad thing. So I can’t pay him millions of dollars, but I’m sure we’ll come to terms.

On questions people always have about being able to trust Deciem’s products in light of the “chaos”:

We have 22 chemists; none of them are cosmetic chemists. They went to study medicine to become medical chemists. They trusted me to come and build not a cosmetic company, but a health company. Most beauty brands don’t even have their own dedicated chemist, let alone a medical chemist and let alone 22 of them.

People need to wake up. We’ve got three factories. Seven other parties are manufacturing for us. Estée Lauder is manufacturing for us, to help us. [A representative from Estée Lauder clarified to Racked that the Estée Lauder Companies are assisting in filling product for Deciem, not producing the formulas.] Next year we’re going to be bigger in size than Dolce & Gabbana. And then it’s like asking, “Oh, I went and saw this small factory in Italy, there was a bit of dirt, how can I trust the quality of the product?” That’s what they’re asking.

If they don’t [trust the products], come and see any of our facilities. You can see the peace, that there is no chaos. Our employees just laugh. Our employees, the ones that are not leaving, are laughing at social. They’re not laughing at the good people; they’re laughing at the people who are seeing chaos in green grass that is very well maintained.

Updated April 6th at 11:59 pm with an additional statement from Dr. Esho.