Jessica Alba Credits These 2 Honest Beauty Products as the Key to Her Iconic Glow

Any skincare advice coming from Jessica Alba may as well be gospel. Since her foray into fame in the late ‘90s, she’s exuded one of Hollywood’s most ethereal, glowy complexions. Two decades later — despite expanding her repertoire to businesswoman and mother of three — Alba remains the pinnacle of luminosity, and virtually anyone’s definition of skin goals.

In addition to lifestyle factors — including therapy, adequate sleep, and nightly journaling — Alba attributes her radiant glow to skincare products from her brand, Honest Beauty. The brand, which she established in 2015, is a trailblazer in the ever-widening chasm of celebrity skincare lines. But Alba really knows her stuff. “We actually have labs down the hall from me,” she tells InStyle. “My chemist and I, we live for beauty. We die for beauty. So we're always dreaming up new things.”

One such thing, the Honest Beauty Calm and Heal Melting Balm, is a crucial component of Alba’s skincare ritual. “I double moisturize — I don't know if that's weird,” she says. Upon waking, she reaches for Honest Beauty’s Calming Sensitive Skin Face Moisturizer Cream, which quenches her dry, “really sensitive skin.” It’s lightweight, fast-absorbing, and “really help[s] protect the skin barrier.” 

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Once absorbed (which, in my experience, takes all of five seconds), Alba’s routine takes an interesting turn by way of thick emollient balms, including the Honest Beauty Calm and Heal Melting Balm, which she globs on with reckless abandon. “I don't really break [the formula] down; I let it sit,” she explains; “it looks like frosting on my skin — my kids think I look nuts, but I'm like, whatever. You'll see. You'll see when you're my age.”

Alba’s face-frosting accompanies her casual quotidian tasks: “I have coffee, get up with the kids, meditate, do whatever I do first thing in the morning,” she says. “By the time I'm [ready] to put my face on for makeup, [the balm] sinks in…[and] I just have that nice, glowy base, that’s super hydrated and ready to go.”

This is the reason the balm tops Alba’s ‘desert island’ product list — which, for a brand founder who loves each of the products, says a lot. This is especially the case during the skin-drying winter months, she adds. “It's actually life-changing for me and for all of my friends that I give it to.” While I’d like to imagine myself as one of said friends, I acquired the balm elsewhere — but I can share Alba’s enthusiasm.

In fact, I’ve recommended the balm to friends who have dry, sensitive skin, and even to a pal who's prone to red, itchy eczema flare-ups. I’m no dermatologist, but I’m confident in its capabilities: Alba designed the balm for all skin, including dry, ultra-sensitized types. “It's very healing,” she says of the formula — a carefully curated blend of gentle skin-soothers, including allantoin, an anti-inflammatory superstar and clinically-backed soother for eczema and psoriasis. The balm has even garnered a green light from the National Eczema Association. 

Also helpful for healing minor cuts and scrapes, I’ve found it’s immensely helpful post-waxing. It also provides immediate relief to dry, cracked bleeding hands, which I’m prone to in the winter. Not anymore, though, I suppose. 

The Honest Beauty Calm and Heal Melting Balm is a veritable wintertime wonder, worthy of anyone’s skincare stash — particularly those who’ve struggled to find adequate relief from skin discomfort due to dryness from other products.