power—and those are the government agencies in charge of making sure our consumer goods are safe.
Why is this situation so ridiculously messed up? The chemical industries have powerful lobbyists in Washington, DC, and their whole job is to find gaping loopholes in the TSCA and make sure those holes stay there. Plus the chemical corporations have huge marketing budgets and can afford to put together ad campaigns that will make you think their products are safe and even environmentally friendly, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s called “greenwashing,” and it Makes. Me. Crazy. It’s so dishonest! These companies don’t care about people, let alone babies, who are the most vulnerable of all to these toxic chemical exposures—they care about protecting their profit margins. And that has to change. In 2011, I partnered with the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition to visit Washington, DC, and advocate for TSCA reform, because I don’t think a parent should need a chemistry degree to have a safe home. This is a totally nonpartisan issue, and it won’t cost taxpayers a dime—all it will do is put responsibility on the chemical companies to test their products for safety before we buy them. We’re still facing an uphill battle to close all those loopholes in the TSCA and put a regulatory system in place that truly protects American families—but every day, more moms and dads are joining the fight.
In the past 35 years, the EPA has restricted only 5 toxic substances and the FDA has banned 11. Meanwhile, the European Union has banned more than 1,100 chemicals that it considers unsafe in personal care products alone!
The Honest Story
S OON AFTER my itchy brush with the baby detergent, I went to a launch party for a book called
Healthy Child Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home
by Christopher Gavigan. The timing couldn’t have been better—I was 7½ months pregnant and freaking out about the laundry and everything in our house. Christopher’s book gave me a thorough education on what, exactly, I needed to worry about and why.
I pretty much cornered Christopher at his party and said, “I’m losing my mind here. Please tell me that there’s a company I can trust, that makes products that really work and are safe for me to use around my baby!” But while he could point me to some very credible brands making safe, environmentally friendly products, all too often they were expensive, didn’t work so well, or were still toxic despite the eco-packaging. Plus I was still overwhelmed by the amount of research I had to do on every brand to figure out if they were the real deal or just greenwashing me with a lot of eco-promises that didn’t pan out.
That’s when I decided that if this company didn’t exist, I had to make it happen. After Christopher and I got to know each other, we thought: “Let’s create a family brand that offers products that work tremendously well and are affordable, beautiful—
and
don’t contain any of these chemicals.”
I knew it was a big dream. Plenty of people told me that I should launch with just
one
product, like a perfume or a body lotion. Or that I’d be better off licensing my name and putting it on a line of clothing or home goods, like a lot of celebrities do. But that wasn’t my passion. What I believe is that we need to make a safer environment for families, starting with the most vulnerable.
I also knew that parents today are way too busy to do tons of research and shop around. So the idea of one trusted company that met all of these needs and saved us a trip to the store was incredibly appealing.
It took us more than three years and a ton of hard work to go from that original aha! moment to the official launch of Honest.com in 2012. After all, I’m just a mom and an actress—not a toxicologist, a tech guru, or a businessperson. I had to surround myself with people who had the expertise I lacked. So with my cofounder and
Why is this situation so ridiculously messed up? The chemical industries have powerful lobbyists in Washington, DC, and their whole job is to find gaping loopholes in the TSCA and make sure those holes stay there. Plus the chemical corporations have huge marketing budgets and can afford to put together ad campaigns that will make you think their products are safe and even environmentally friendly, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s called “greenwashing,” and it Makes. Me. Crazy. It’s so dishonest! These companies don’t care about people, let alone babies, who are the most vulnerable of all to these toxic chemical exposures—they care about protecting their profit margins. And that has to change. In 2011, I partnered with the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition to visit Washington, DC, and advocate for TSCA reform, because I don’t think a parent should need a chemistry degree to have a safe home. This is a totally nonpartisan issue, and it won’t cost taxpayers a dime—all it will do is put responsibility on the chemical companies to test their products for safety before we buy them. We’re still facing an uphill battle to close all those loopholes in the TSCA and put a regulatory system in place that truly protects American families—but every day, more moms and dads are joining the fight.
In the past 35 years, the EPA has restricted only 5 toxic substances and the FDA has banned 11. Meanwhile, the European Union has banned more than 1,100 chemicals that it considers unsafe in personal care products alone!
The Honest Story
S OON AFTER my itchy brush with the baby detergent, I went to a launch party for a book called
Healthy Child Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home
by Christopher Gavigan. The timing couldn’t have been better—I was 7½ months pregnant and freaking out about the laundry and everything in our house. Christopher’s book gave me a thorough education on what, exactly, I needed to worry about and why.
I pretty much cornered Christopher at his party and said, “I’m losing my mind here. Please tell me that there’s a company I can trust, that makes products that really work and are safe for me to use around my baby!” But while he could point me to some very credible brands making safe, environmentally friendly products, all too often they were expensive, didn’t work so well, or were still toxic despite the eco-packaging. Plus I was still overwhelmed by the amount of research I had to do on every brand to figure out if they were the real deal or just greenwashing me with a lot of eco-promises that didn’t pan out.
That’s when I decided that if this company didn’t exist, I had to make it happen. After Christopher and I got to know each other, we thought: “Let’s create a family brand that offers products that work tremendously well and are affordable, beautiful—
and
don’t contain any of these chemicals.”
I knew it was a big dream. Plenty of people told me that I should launch with just
one
product, like a perfume or a body lotion. Or that I’d be better off licensing my name and putting it on a line of clothing or home goods, like a lot of celebrities do. But that wasn’t my passion. What I believe is that we need to make a safer environment for families, starting with the most vulnerable.
I also knew that parents today are way too busy to do tons of research and shop around. So the idea of one trusted company that met all of these needs and saved us a trip to the store was incredibly appealing.
It took us more than three years and a ton of hard work to go from that original aha! moment to the official launch of Honest.com in 2012. After all, I’m just a mom and an actress—not a toxicologist, a tech guru, or a businessperson. I had to surround myself with people who had the expertise I lacked. So with my cofounder and
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