Brandon Truaxe, founder and CEO of DECIEM, a Canadian beauty company, has been forced to resign following a judge order. This Toronto-based company is home to several beauty brands such as Grow Gorgeous and Home Fountain. Following a series of unusual behavior on social media, Brandon Truaxe has been forcefully removed from the company following court orders.

DECIEM: A SUCCESSFUL COMPANY

Founded in 2013, the beauty and skincare company DECIEM has brought a new vision to beauty products. The company’s tagline “The Abnormal Beauty Company” has introduced revolutionary products into the cosmetic world. Most famous for “The Ordinary”, which is considered one of the breakout skincare brands. It’s so popular that when it launched a foundation in 2017, there was a 25,000-person wait list. Popular much? I think so!

After gaining a cult following and winning several beauty awards, DECIEM got the attention of high-profile beauty company Estée Lauder who purchased a stake in the company in 2017. Expanding not only within Canada but now in the US, Australia, UK, and South Korea, DECIEM is expecting to hit over $300 million in sales this year. Kim Kardashian West has also confirmed being a fan of “The Ordinary”.

Strange Social Media BEHAVIOR

It all started in January 2018 when Truaxe decided to take over the company’s social media accounts. His reason? He wanted to declare full transparency of the company. The result was somewhat confusing, however, following strange announcements confusing fans.

The first sign was the Instagram post where Truaxe announced that he would be canceling all marketing plans of the company. His solution? Start using DECIEM’s Instagram page as marketing and personally answer to each comment. Not sure how as CEO he would find time to answer each comment, but that was the plan. As time passed, things got worse. Who can forget the incident where Truaxe announced that DECIEM’s Instagram was hacked by perhaps fellow competitors or past employees? Or when he decided to remove the CEO title from his name? His claim was that responsible people don’t need a CEO and that he wanted to be a “friend” to his employees.

Strange Posts

There’s nothing wrong with bringing awareness to world issues. But there’s a limit on how to present it and how often to do it. In February of this year, Truaxe decided to post SEVEN videos of garbage piles in Morocco. The reason behind the videos was to announce a new initiative to eliminate all plastic from its projects. Great initiative. What was strange however was that he was directly addressing two of his employees to contact all their suppliers to announce the news. Perhaps a personal message would have been more appropriate? Following the strange post, there were pictures of dead sheep on DECIEM’s Instagram page confirming that they never test their products on animals. Maybe another way would have been better than posting pictures of dead animals.

For some strange reason, Brandon Truaxe decided to confirm his sexual orientation by announcing on Instagram that he’s not gay. Not sure why he felt the need to announce that when no one asked him if he was gay or not.

The strange behavior continued all throughout the year. Results? DECIEM lost several followers and unfortunately, a lot of ties were broken with collaborators. Over 5,000 followers were lost on Instagram, so it’s safe to say that DECIEM’s new way of using social media as a marketing tool was probably not the best idea.

Deciem closing its stores?

The final straw was on Monday, October 9th when Truaxe announced on social media that DECIEM would be closing its doors for an undetermined amount of time. His reason for why the company would be shutting down was that everyone within the company was involved in major criminal activity including financial crimes. You could say that all hell broke loose at that time.

Drastic measures were taken at that time to save the company. On Friday, Ontario Superior Court Judge Michael Penny gave the final verdict. Agreeing with stakeholder Estée Lauder, Brandon Truaxe has been forced to resign from the company. He’s been stripped of all his titles and no longer represents DECIEM. There’s also been a request to hire PricewaterhouseCoopers to investigate the allegations of criminal activity within the company.

The Reaction?

Brandon Truaxe’s unusual behavior has certainly brought a lot of concern to fans. Rumors about his mental health or if all of this was a publicity stunt have surfaced and fans are still unsure as to what to think.

Although several clients have decided to abandon the brand, DECIEM still continues to be popular among beauty products. They are expected to open several more stores and expand in new beauty lines in the coming future.