L’Oréal executives scooped Axelle up with the offer of a modelling contract after photos of her at a game racked up 200,000 likes on Facebook and her face was popping up everywhere.
Ironically, just weeks after that deal, it is social media that has now ended Despiegelaere's fledgling career, specifically controversial photos of her hunting posted on the same Facebook page.
The pictures accompanied by the post; "Hunting is not a matter of life or death. It's much more important than that", has since been taken down but screenshots remain all over the internet, rubbing animal rights activists up the wrong way.
Although L’Oréal has yet to state that the photos were the reason Axelle has been dropped, some believe they have been given no choice but to drop the Belgian beauty.
Backlash
As the backlash began to roll in, the teen was quick to apologize, posting; "Hi, i didn't mean to offend anyone... it was a joke. Thanks for understanding."
Then came a tweet from senior editor at the Business Insider, Aly Weisman who addressed L’Oréal directly; "what do you think of this post by your new model... ?"
Soon after, Despiegelaere was dropped, and a L’Oréal spokesperson released the following statement.
"Axelle de Spiegelaere is not one of L’Oréal Professionnel’s spokespeople. L’Oréal Professionnel Belgium collaborated with her on an ad hoc basis to produce a video for social media use in Belgium. This has now been produced."
Other cosmetic brands have been cashing in on World Cup innovation though
Despite L’Oréal not being prosperous in this instance, other cosmetic brands did manage to score a few goals throughout the tournament with products that coincided with the games.
Colour cosmetics player Benefit revealed its plans to kit out a pub in London with its' products so that women could entertain themselves while Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney battled it out to get their hands on the Jules Rimet.
Then it was L’Artisan Parfumeur's turn. Which developed an ode to Brazilian culture with Batucada, an eau de toilette named for a sub-genre of samba.
To develop this new fragrance, the brand called upon two renowned noses: Karine Vinchon in Grasse, France and Elisabeth Maier in São Paulo.
Together, the two perfume artists concocted an eau de toilette evoking the percussive rhythms of samba music and the beaches of Ipanema and Copacaban.