The Ordinary built its reputation on transparent pricing and straightforward formulations, offering active ingredients without luxury markups. Founded in Canada under Deciem, the brand reshaped consumer expectations by prioritizing accessibility and scientific clarity over marketing narratives.
In 2021, Estée Lauder acquired full ownership of Deciem, placing The Ordinary within a conglomerate that sells in markets such as mainland China, where animal testing remains legally required. This undermines the brand’s cruelty-free positioning.
Estée Lauder’s chairman, Ronald Lauder, also serves as president of the Jewish National Fund. The JNF controls 13% of land in Israel and bars Palestinians from leasing or purchasing it, while funding illegal settlement expansion and military-linked charities. Through this leadership and financing structure, The Ordinary is tied to broader systems of political and ethical harm.
Estée Lauder is rated High Impact because it concentrates cultural and financial power at a global scale while channelling wealth into one of the most entrenched institutions of Israeli apartheid. With Ronald Lauder at the helm of the Jewish National Fund, the company is directly bound to the mechanisms of land confiscation, settlement growth, and military-aligned infrastructure in Palestine.
The impact is structural: dozens of distinct brands—from mass-market staples like Clinique and Rimmel to luxury houses like La Mer and Tom Ford Beauty—all funnel revenue into the same corporate centre. Every purchase strengthens a conglomerate that not only profits from extractive and exploitative supply chains but also invests in political projects sustaining dispossession.
Where other beauty firms may be complicit through regulatory concessions such as animal testing in China, Estée Lauder stands out because its leadership transforms consumer spending into political capital for an apartheid regime. That combination of market dominance and direct political entanglement makes it one of the most urgent boycott targets in the sector.