The drama never seems to stop with Jessica Alba's Honest Company. The business and its founder rejected a report published by the Wall Street Journal that said the company used a chemical in its laundry detergent that consumers were told Honest would avoid.
The report said that, based on commissioned lab tests, Honest used the ingredient sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) in its laundry detergent despite the fact that the company's website says its detergent is SLS-free. The ingredient - which is often used in toothpaste, shampoo and detergent - is often blamed for causing skin irritations.
"Despite providing the Wall Street Journal with substantial evidence to the contrary, they falsely claimed our laundry detergent contains sodium lauryl Sulfate (SLS)," said Alba's company in a statement. "To set the record straight, we use sodium coco sulfate (SCS) in our brand's laundry detergent because it is a gentler alternative that is less irritating and safer to use."
"Rigorous testing and analysis both by our internal research and development teams as well as further testing by external partners have confirmed this fact," the statement continued. "The Wall Street Journal has been reckless in the preparation of this article, refused multiple requests to share data on which they apparently relied and has substituted junk science for credible journalism."
While the Honest Company disputed the claims of the publication, this was not the first time Honest products were criticized. Last summer, the all-natural brand was involved with not one, but two lawsuits over its sunscreen.
The first lawsuit claimed that a number of Honest's products contained "unnatural" and "synthetic" ingredients and that the sunscreen was "ineffective." The second lawsuit said that Alba's company was "deceptive" and used "misleading labels" to market its products as "natural."
The Honest Company, which went public last month, was valued at $1.7 billion in 2015.
A photo posted by The Honest Company (@honest) on Mar 1, 2016 at 5:03pm PST
