Changing approaches to skincare – Deciem

The skincare industry has long had its well-established big players whose products promise miracle results at hefty price tags. This cream, they promise, will give you skin softer than a baby’s overnight. Just a swipe of this toner and your skin will be wrinkle free. Enter Deciem, the self-described “abnormal beauty company”, who want to challenge the way the beauty industry works. Rather than relying on big marketing promises and luxurious packaging, Deciem focuses on ingredients and real science.

Since launching in Canada with just one product in 2013, Deciem has since expanded to include 10 brands and a portfolio of more than 50 products. The brands included in the Deciem umbrella aim to provide something for everyone, each targeted towards a slightly different audience but all based on well researched science. According to the founder Brandon Truaxe, they all share one common mission: to marry function design and authenticity. Being unforgiving in detail, he believes, will earn the trust of those who recognize his dedication.

And that is exactly what is so appealing about Deciem. It doesn’t want to appeal to a mass market. One of its brands, NIOD, is described as skincare for the hyper-educated, although this tagline could be applied to most of the other brands too. Deciem requires its customers to understand the ingredients in skincare and their benefits for skin. The products in their recently launched  The Ordinary line, a brand which truly embodies the boundary pushing mentality of Deciem by spotlighting one hero ingredient and charging unprecedentedly low prices for it, have names that resemble chemical compounds rather than traditional names for creams, like Vitamin C Suspension 23% + HS Spheres.

This ingredient focused, scientific approach to skincare is reflective of a general shift in attitudes to the beauty industry. Many are tired of exaggerated marketing claims and are turning to the ingredient list for real information on the benefits of a product. Consumers are educating themselves on the various active and inactive ingredients commonly found in products,helping them to make more informed choices when it comes to skincare. This is often a perilous undertaking considering how easy it is to claim a corner of the internet and start blogging about skincare without any actual qualifications. Luckily there are some reputable skincare bloggers who provide their readers with qualified advice, like Caroline Hirons, who also has a handy guide to NIOD products.

This interest has seen a rise in mainstream skincare brands focusing on active ingredients, like retinol or glycolic acid, in their products, but at a high cost. Deciem feels that the price tag associated with many of the products that include active ingredients are not reflective of the research and cost required to create them. When active ingredients were first introduced to skincare, they were expensive and elusive. Now however they are readily available, meaning the cost for the manufacturer to include them has dropped significantly, but retail prices have remained the same. All of Deciems products, on the other hand, are priced according to the research and time required to produce them.

Although Deciem has only existed for a short amount of time, it is already a favorite among many skincare experts. The fair prices, honest claims and science based approach seem to have proven to be all the marketing that is needed to ensure success. Now all that remains to see is how the established beauty brands react to the new kid on the block.