Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. Places Bigger Bet on Beauty Products

 Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. Places Bigger Bet on Beauty Products

Actress Jessica Alba is a self-proclaimed “beauty junkie.” That explains why The Honest Co.—a brand Alba co-founded with an initial focus on diapers, infant formulas, and household cleaning products—expanded the startup’s portfolio by entering the beauty category with a line of cosmetics and facial care products.

On Monday, Alba’s Honest Co., a $1.7 billion valued unicorn, takes the Honest Beauty launch one step further by launching a new line of 11 shampoos, conditioners, and hair sprays to spray the $11 billion domestic haircare market. The move signals that Honest Co. sees even more room to disrupt traditional players in the beauty aisle after making a similar move to take on household and baby supplies makers when the startup first launched in 2012. “The number one requested product from our customer base was beauty products,” said CEO Brian Lee in an interview with Fortune. “Our customers were demanding it. It was a natural extension.”

Beauty Products

Honest Co. promises the same clean and healthy message that it has aimed to attach to all its products, this time touting a haircare line that relies on natural ingredients like coconut juice, white tea, and algae. It also avoids using ingredients that Honest Co. claims have “questionable health and safety standards.” Those ingredients include sulfates, silicones, and synthetic fragrances and dyes. Honest Beauty’s hairline will be sold online on the startup’s website and will get a brick-and-mortar retail push through an exclusive distribution deal with Ulta ULTA -0.16%. The haircare line, priced between $18 to $30, debuts in September.

“We are pushing the boundaries when it comes to what’s possible with these formulations,” Lee said, adding that it can be difficult for beauty product makers to successfully develop scents without the use of synthetic fragrances and mineral oil (which also isn’t found in Honest Co.’s line). Lee adds that there’s white space within the haircare and broader beauty industry. He contends larger manufacturers aren’t resonating in selling product lines that speak to the “natural” consumer products movement. In tackling the beauty market, Honest Co. is angling to take on consumer products giants Procter & Gamble the-Procter-gamble-co, Unilever UL 0.36%, and beauty products behemoth L’Oreal loreal-s-a.

Honest Co.’s ability to market itself as a “natural” seller of consumer goods has recently come into question. A report published earlier this year by The Wall Street Journal said lab testing was commissioned to find a cleaning agent called sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS, in Honest’s detergent—findings the startup disputed. Honest Co. has also faced several lawsuits that have alleged the company’s purported all-natural products feature deceptive labeling or, in some cases, are ineffective.

Though Honest Co. executives have said the company is truthful about the marketing of its goods, the brand’s public image has taken a few hits. But it isn’t alone. Several big food makers and consumer goods giants have faced similar lawsuits that question the use of “natural” or “organic” in marketing and labeling. There’s no clear definition for what those words mean, so companies and consumers aren’t always on the same page. Still, Honest Co. says shoppers are looking for a brand they can believe in—and it contends shoppers still believe in the startup’s mission and promises. The company adds that it has also found the right formula for beauty.

Dennis Bailey

https://extraupdate.com

Professional beer geek. Alcohol ninja. Social media scholar. Award-winning twitter fanatic. Writer. Basketball fan, mother of 2, audiophile, Saul Bass fan and communicator, collector, connector, creator. Producing at the sweet spot between simplicity and purpose to create strong, lasting and remarkable design. I'm a designer and this is my work.