Jessica Alba Launches Honest Beauty Makeup Line Amid Sunscreen Controversy

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Honest Beauty celebrates diverse beauty. (Photo: Honest Beauty)

Jessica Alba’s Honest Company has come under fire for the effectiveness of its natural sunscreen, but that’s not stopping the sustainable brand — recently valued at $1.7 billion — or its famous co-founder from expanding into the cosmetics arena. Honest Beauty launched today with a plethora of natural products ranging from skin care to makeup.

“It’s been, gosh, a labor of love for so long,” says Alba. “I can’t even keep track of time anymore. I’ve lost many nights of sleep over this for good reason, because I care and I wanted this line to be perfect.”

Being cautious is a good thing, considering the outcries, complaints, and a $5 million lawsuit against Honest Company claiming the brand “deceptively and misleadingly labeled” five products, and that its sunscreen is ineffective. Alba responded through a press statement saying “the allegations against us are baseless and without merit.” The word “natural” actually has no concrete definition in the beauty world, so I had to ask Alba for her own personal definition of the word. “Natural means so many different things,” Alba told Yahoo Beauty. “Like loving my kids is something that’s very natural to me as a mom! It just means different things for different people.”

And for the record, Alba stands by her sunscreen, insisting people need to educate themselves on how to properly apply it. “As a consumer and user of mineral sunscreen versus chemical sunscreen, it’s important that you understand how to use mineral sunscreen, and applying it a certain way and reapplying it. But it’s the same thing with chemical sunscreen. You have to apply it a certain way and reapply, so I think education around the use of products is incredibly important.” Alba is correct on that point. Natural sunscreen is a lot different from chemical sunscreen in that it acts as a physical block and doesn’t penetrate skin. As soon as you hop in the water or get really sweaty it needs to be reapplied.

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Jessica Alba in the lab working on Honest Beauty formulations. (Photo: Instagram)

For Alba, the shift to cosmetics was a natural one that she’d been dying to do for a long time, and she feels the customers are there. “I think that safe and effective beauty products are what people want, and being able to deliver the type of flawless finish to the textures, beautiful pigments, and payoff in their color cosmetics is something you really don’t see anywhere else. Honest Beauty is delivering that for them.”

The site boasts a well-curated collection of skin care and makeup products, and cleverly shows consumers how to use the more unusual products like its Refreshingly Clean Powder Cleanser ($22) with helpful photos and videos. For skin care there’s a variety of cleansers, moisturizer, tinted moisturizer, cream, oil, face mist, and a do-it-all Magic Balm ($18) There are tools, too, like makeup wipes, and a konjac sponge. In the makeup department you’ll find products for face (primer, concealer, foundation, cream blush, and powder), eyes (shadow trios, liner, and brow pencil), and lips (gloss and lip crayons). The Truly Lush Mascara + Lash Primer ($22) is a standout as are the Lip Crayons ($18) which come in both demi-matte and sheer formulas.

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Honest Beauty’s take on sunscreen: A sheer tinted SPF 30 for face. (Photo: Honest Beauty)

Alba describes her collection as a comprehensive line of safe and effective products that also celebrate diverse beauty. “That was something I was really passionate about,” she says. “I am a woman of color and when I started acting when I was twelve years old, good lord, it was hard to find some good foundation. And I just felt like every other beauty line made me feel like I needed to be somebody else.” The line’s range of color cosmetics as well as its eight foundations and five concealers do appear to suit a wide range of skin tones (as evidenced on their diverse group of six models), something Alba says she’s “really proud of.” She also believes in the power of transformation through makeup. “Some days you want to be fresh-faced. Other days we want that hot smoky eye for girls’ night out. Other days you want to go on a date night and you might need a cat eye with a nice want pink lip. We’re allowed to do that, because makeup is fun and it’s playful.”

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Honest Beauty’s Cream Blush works well on cheeks and as a lip stain. (Photo: Honest Beauty)

And play she did, even trying her hand at video tutorials for the “Looks” section of the site. This hands-on approach gave her a newfound respect for YouTube vloggers. “I have so much mad respect for those girls who do those makeup tutorials. It is no joke. But I did them because I think it’s so important to see so how the makeup wears, how you blend…Those tips and tricks that I learned along the way from makeup artists — I applied all of those.”

As with Honest Company, the actress says she’s involved in every part of the process in her makeup line, from idea conception to the labs to the retail shelves. Her main objective? “Being able to offer a comprehensive line that really delivers and won’t melt off your face, stays on through the day, do a little touch up here and there and just works beautifully.” Said like a woman who truly knows what it’s like to work in front of the cameras all day. Alba says she’s best test-driving the makeup for months on the red carpet, photo shoots, and even in her new movie, Mechanic: Ressurection with Jason Statham.

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Honest Beauty’s Lip Crayons come in demi-matte and sheer formulas. (Photo: Honest Beauty)

Price point, a hot topic when it comes to natural beauty products, is kept as low as possible, ranging from $8 travel wipes to a $45 skin care travel kit. “When you’re building products that use higher quality raw materials it is challenge to achieve a margin where you can have a sustainable business, so that is always something that we wrestle with as accompany,” says Alba. “There are certain products that we are just going to take a hit on because we want to offer it at a more competitive price.” Honest Beauty is also offering Beauty Bundles — a monthly subscription service where you’ll receive three products of your choice for $50.

Sitting back and looking at her success in the beauty arena, Alba did not anticipate the shift from being a leading actress to an entrepreneur. “It was definitely not something I anticipated in my life,” says Alba. “But I really wanted the Honest Company to exist. Being a mom, I really wanted safe and effective products and I wanted one company to meet all of my needs. There are so many other modern women out there who have the same needs as me, and it’s so great that so many people love our line.”

Will Honest Beauty become the billion dollar business that The Honest Company has grown to be? Brian Lee, cofounder and chief executive officer of The Honest Company actually believes the cosmetics line will far surpass the lifestyle component. “The size of the beauty market is much larger than the other categories we are claiming today, so does it have the potential to be larger than The Honest Company? Absolutely,” Lee recently told Women’s Wear Daily. The “natural” beauty market is a category that’s growing rapidly, but Alba’s star power along with the high quality of the products do set Honest Beauty apart.

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