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Jessica Alba's Honest company is under fire from customers who say that they and their children were badly burned after using the company's SPF products.
The billion dollar company started receiving complaints back in March via reviews on Amazon, complaints direct to their website and obviously, social media - as the below..
All of the complainants said that they applied the SPF as directed, and always reapplied every two hours as guided.
There are numerous theories as to why this SPF, which was reformulated this year after customer feedback, is failing. The two main ones being that after feedback from customers, the company lowered the percentage of zinc oxide from 20% to 9.3% so that it would not leave any white residue and be easier to apply - and that perhaps customers did not shake the product before use, leading to an uneven distribution of the zinc oxide.
Why, exactly, it took nearly 6 months for the company to address the complaints publicly and release statements to the media is a lesson in PR. If parents are saying their children are being burned, you act.
Own it, fix it, move on. Don't ignore it and advise people that they must have applied it incorrectly.
The lessons for the rest of us?
'Natural' is not always the best option.
A product that claims to be 'natural', in most cases, using zinc oxide, is and should be fairly thick to apply. You can't have it both ways.
The Honest SPF30 scored brilliantly on the EWG website. As I said in my first SPF post, take the EWG with a pinch of salt.
Shake well before use. Always, no matter what the SPF product.
Trust your instincts, not the product bottle description. If you feel like you are burning, you probably are.
Watch your children. Kids never like having SPF applied, but they have to be completely covered. I'm not publishing the pictures of the children with sunburn allegedly caused by the Honest SPF, but they are awful. Neck, ears, forehead and the apples of the cheeks are where I see the most sun damage in clients and their little ones.
Please do leave me any comments if you've used the Honest SPF - good or bad, and equally, let me know of your favourite SPF products, especially for your children.
You can read the Honest Company's statement here: blog.honest.com/a-message-from-the-founders
