There was a time when purchasing a £6 serum in a luxury department store was the stuff of dreams; yet beauty brand The Ordinary has made that a reality.

The Ordinary is the brainchild of Deciem, aka The Abnormal Skincare Company, an incubator of science-backed beauty brands that arrived on the beauty scene in spring 2013 with an audacious scheme to launch ten brands over three years. As co-founder and chief executive Nicola Kilner explains, the idea was driven by a desire to do everything under its Toronto laboratory’s roof.

“The concept was, let’s do ten things at once and have an ecosystem where everything is in-house,” she explains. Compared to traditional corporates – “where ideas come from trend reports … everything is driven by marketing” – Deciem’s fluid set up informs its ideas, with the scientists who made the product sitting within walking distance of the people who shared it on social media.