AT WOR K
rom her breakthrough role as a genetically
enhanced soldier in Dark Angel, to the super-
heroine Sue Storm in the Marvel franchise, and
her latest part as a tough detective and working
mother in the new TV series LA’s Finest, Jessica
Alba has made her name playing indomitable women.
But starting the Honest Company was the most daunting
undertaking of her professional life. ‘I was wildly insecure about
it ever working,’ she admits. Not only was she coping with the
stresses of new motherhood, but she also had no business experi-
ence or college education to fall back on, having gone straight into
acting as a teenager.
Yet by 2015, just three years after she founded her natural
baby product and beauty empire, the Honest Company had been
valued at $1.7 billion, and in 2016 Alba herself was listed by Forbes as
having a net worth of $340 million. This year, her cosmetics brand
Honest Beauty arrived in Europe (you can find selected products at
Boots), its popularity enhanced by the knowl-
edge that the Duchess of Sussex wore the
blush on her wedding day.
If one of the major challenges for a new
business is finding a core customer, it
shouldn’t be surprising that celebrities are
increasingly monetising the power of their
global following. From Gwyneth Paltrow’s
Goop to Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty and Bey-
oncé’s activewear line Ivy Park, the A list is
ensuring long-term success outside the often
ageist parameters of showbiz by launching
portfolio careers.
And it cannot hurt, when pitching for
venture capital, to know how to perform for strangers. ‘My theory
is that if you look confident, you can pull off anything – even
if you have no clue what you’re doing,’ Alba herself has said.
Her reason for founding the Honest Company was simple. As
a child, she was dogged by illness and allergies, including severe
asthma, which necessitated hospital treatment, surgery and medi-
cation. ‘I didn’t want my baby to be sick. And when I became a
mother, I thought about my own health and wanting to be there
for my kid through all of her life stages,’ she explains. As a
precautionary measure while she was pregnant, she switched
to a laundry detergent recommended by her own mother and
marketed specifically as gentle enough for babies; it caused her to
react. ‘I was like, Mom, what if my baby had an allergic reaction
to this detergent! She’s a newborn, how would I know if her
throat’s closing! I was so scared, you know. That was really what
motivated me to learn about all of these things.’
Attempting to find suitable products led her into further
confusion. ‘There was all this misinformation,’ she explains. ‘I’d
think something organic was better, but it ended up maybe
having an organic ingredient with other stuff inside that I wanted
to avoid. Or if it had a picture of nature or a leaf, I thought it must
be better for you, but it was because the packaging was more
sustainable. Everything inside the product was still the same as
everything else... I started the company really out of a need thatI had in wanting to ensure that everything that was in, on and
around me and my new little baby was safe.’ She named it ‘Honest’
both as a statement of intent and in a tribute to her daughter
Honor, who inspired its creation.
It was an appealingly simple vision, but one that she says was
‘very, very difficult to get off the ground’. ‘I spent three years with
people looking at me sideways, going, “You want to start a what?
Why would you even do that?”’ All too often, the male investors to
whom she pitched the Honest Company seemed unable to grasp
the concept. ‘They would often say, “Let me go and ask my wife
if she thinks this is a good idea.” Whereas every woman I spoke to
who had been in a similar situation as me – or even ones who hadn’t- was like, “I can’t believe this company doesn’t already exist.”’
This disparity in understanding seems to have only hardened
her determination to create a business that in its make-up and
organisation better reflected its customer. ‘Why do these giant
brands have such old-school infrastructure? Why are they the
only ones that can reach the consumer in all of these areas that
touch our lives every day? I felt there was such an opportunity for a
brand to have that direct-to-consumer relationship and to be more
human in the approach,’ she says. The Honest Company started
with a core group of 17 products and has expanded in response to
customer demand, and to the gaps in the
market that Alba herself perceived. ‘When
we went into diaper bags, there were options
that were so feminine-looking that my hus-
band didn’t want to carry them and he’d
repack them,’ she says. ‘So I designed a gender-
neutral bag that can be used by anybody.’
In the intervening seven years working
with Honest, Alba says she has learnt both
to trust her own intuition – ‘If my gut says
something, I listen to it’ – and the importance
of building a team that shares her vision.
‘You’re really only as good as your team,’ she
says. ‘You need to understand your own
strengths and weaknesses, and fill the gaps with people who have
the same values and integrity.’
To that end, in 2017, she brought in a new CEO and shook up
the senior leadership team, which is now mostly female (‘It’s just
easier if half the room gets it’). Is she a good boss? ‘I care a lot,’ she
says. ‘I’m not perfect, but my heart is in the right place. I can’t really
look at myself outside of my intentions.’
With LA’s Finest commissioned for a second series next year,
and her family now numbering three children, her schedule is
certainly punishing. ‘My call time could be 4am; I could be work-
ing all-nighters for two weeks and be completely upside-down,’ she
says. ‘I tackle Honest stuff while I’m learning my lines. And then
I have my children, who are my priorities... I need to exercise, I
need to eat healthier, and I literally don’t do any of it.’
Still, you get the impression that she wouldn’t have it any other
way. ‘Entertainment is an incredibly collaborative and creative
environment,’ she says, ‘but to make something that you can look
at and feel has been really exciting.’
‘You’re only as good
as your team. You
need to understand
your strengths and
weaknesses,
and fill the gaps’
F
PHOTOGRAPH: DANI BRUBAKER/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES